Burying the Truth

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He started beating me and yelling, 'You are lying! You are hiding the
truth! We have information that you
were on the square with an automatic gun. Confess!' And [he] punched me in the
chest. I was insisting I was innocent and never possessed arms Then they
brought me back to the room where others were sitting and some time later they
told me and some others to get into their police car and escorted us to the
GUVD [Andijan City Police Department].

A man detained for questioning in Andijan

Human Rights Watch interview, Andijan,
July 15, 2005

It was a nightmare and I don't want to go through it again. Please, do
not contact me ever again with these
questions.

A man detained for questioning in Andijan

Human Rights Watch interview, Andijan,
July 15, 2005

Executive Summary

On May 13, 2005 Uzbek governmentforces killed hundreds
of unarmed protesters as they fled a demonstration in Andijan, in eastern Uzbekistan.
To date the government has taken no steps to investigate or hold accountable
those responsible for this atrocity.
Instead it is denying all responsibility and persecuting those who seek an
independent and transparent investigation.

In the early morning hours of May 13, gunmen attacked
government buildings, killed security
officials, broke into the city prison,
took over the local government building, or hokimiat, and took hostages. Towards dawn, they
began to prepare for a large protest
in Bobur Square,
in front of the hokimiat, and
mobilized people to attend. By 11:00 a.m., as word spread, the protest grew
into the thousands, as people came of their own will and vented their grievances
about poverty and government repression.
When government forces sealed off the square and started shooting indiscriminately, the protesters fled. Hundreds of them
were ambushed by government forces, which gunned them down without warning.
This stunning use of excessive force has been documented by the United Nations
and other intergovernmental organizations.

The attackers who took over the government buildings,
released prisoners, killed
officials, and took hostages committed serious
crimes. Any government has a
legitimate interest in investigating and prosecuting such crimes and an obligation to do so while upholding the
rule of law. But the Uzbek government is using widespread repression and abuse to manipulate the truth, so that
it can depict the protest itself as violent-organized by "terrorists" with a radical Islamic agenda and with the
participation of mostly armed protestors- and suppress
any evidence to the contrary, and shift the blame for the deaths of so many
unarmed people.

Little is known about the prosecution of those formally
charged with the crimes described above, though there is reason for concern that
their trials, scheduled to begin in
September 2005, will not be fair. Human Rights Watch has been able to learn much,
however, about the authorities' wide
scale crackdown to suppress any information
that contradicts its version of the May 13 protest and the killings. In
Andijan, police detained, severely beat, and threatened people to coerce them
to sign false confessions of belonging to extremist religious organizations and
bearing arms while participating in
the May 13 protest; to name others at the protest; to incriminate
others in violence; or to say that they witnessed violence at the
demonstration. Uzbek authorities
hounded many of the families of hundreds of people who had fled the protest and
became refugees in neighboring Kyrgyzstan,
to compel them to come home where they too could be interrogated and prevented
from telling their story to the outside world.

The government also unleashed a crackdown
on civil society, the ferocity of
which is unprecedented even in Uzbekistan's
fourteen-year history of repression
since it became independent from the Soviet Union.
The authorities have aggressively
pursued human rights defenders,
independent journalists, and political activists who attempted to convey the
truth about the events of May 13 and the days that followed. These individuals
have been arrested on spurious
charges, detained, beaten, threatened, put under surveillance or under de facto
house arrest, and have been set upon by mobs and humiliated through
Soviet-style public denunciations. As this report
went to press, at least eleven
activists had been imprisoned, and
at least fifteen had been forced to flee the country into exile.[1]

The present report
documents the coercive pressure for
testimony, which the government is using to rewrite
the history of what happened on May 13. Almost immediately
after that date, Andijan residents were placed under the close surveillance of
their neighborhood committees, or mahallas.
Beginning in June, police detained for questioning hundreds-and perhaps
thousands-of people with any connection, no matter how remote, to the May 13
events: protesters, their relatives, relatives of those who fled to Kyrgyzstan,
people who lived in the vicinity of
the main square, and the like.

Those interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that police
kept them in custody under false pretenses, usually by fabricating misdemeanor charges against them, and used
the time in custody to beat or threaten them into signing the false confessions
and statements described above. Once
police got what they wanted, and only then, they released the detainees, on
condition that they sign statements saying they had no complaints about their
treatment.

During the summer
months, Uzbek television broadcast a series
of scripted public confessions in
which people say they were misled into going to the protest, attest that they
have repented, beg for forgiveness
from President Karimov, and are then
shown being handed over to their parents and mahalla committee for
rehabilitation.

Uzbek authorities
attempted to extend their reach across borders. Human Rights Watch maintained a
field presence in Jalal Abad, Kyrgyzstan to monitor the protection of refugees
who fled Uzbekistan
after the violence. Our constant contact
with refugees and their families allowed us to document, in this report, the extraordinary pressure
Uzbek authorities exerted on them to
return to Uzbekistan.
Mahalla and other government agents detained, ill-treated, and threatened
people in Andijan to pressure their
family members who were refugees in Kyrgyzstan to return. These
officials made promises that the refugees would be safe if they returned to
Andijan, if only they would "ask the state's forgiveness." In a few dramatic
cases, government agents attempted to forcibly return refugees by physically
dragging them out of the camp.

Despite the Uzbek government's promises, there is little
doubt that, had they returned to Uzbekistan, the refugees would have
faced detention and abuse. At the same time as local Uzbek authorities were saying the refugees would be safe in
Andijan, the Uzbek media were full
of official statements that these people were not refugees but religious
extremists and terrorists. By July,
Uzbek authorities stated that more
than two hundred of the refugees, almost half the population of the refugee
camp in Jalal Abad, were wanted for extradition. The danger of forced return
was so great that in late July international
agencies evacuated them to Romania,
where their safety could be better guaranteed. However, four of the asylum seekers
remain in police custody in Kyrgyzstan
and may yet be extradited to Uzbekistan,
where they face an almost certain risk
of torture and ill-treatment.

This report also
documents the crackdown against
"truth-tellers"-human rights
defenders, civil society activists, political activists, and independent
journalists-whom the government has sought to intimidate,
discredit and silence. Human rights
defenders in Andijan have been hit hardest. For example, Saidjahon
Zainabitdinov, a veteran of Uzbekistan's
human rights movement, has been in
jail since May 21 on charges of terrorism
and sowing panic among the population, in retribution
for his efforts to inform the world
about what took place on May 13.

Civil society activists in other cities have not been
spared. The crackdown has been
particularly harsh in Tashkent, the capital, and
in Jizzakh, about 160 kilometers south-west of Tashkent. Human rights
defenders there have been the targets of "hate rallies" and other public
denunciations in which local community leaders vilify them, calling them
Islamic extremists and enemies of the people, and mobs attempt to run them out
of town. Uzbekistan's
government-controlled media have
echoed government accusations by frequently publishing invective against human rights defenders, journalists and others, alleging
that they are extremists, spies, and abettors of terrorism.
In numerous cases, human rights
defenders who tried to participate
in small demonstrations in Tashkent
and other cities ended up under house arrest, beaten up, or in police custody.
In one such case, a Ministry of Internal
Affairs official acknowledged a policy of "preventive detention," saying that
in the aftermath of Andijan the authorities
were "checking all persons of a special category."

While these actions are clearly directed against those who
sought to expose the truth about Andijan, the crackdown
appears to continue a broader trajectory of repression
begun last year, as the government deepened restrictions
on civil society following public uprisings
resulting in nonviolent changes of government in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005).

With Andijan de facto closed to independent journalists and
human rights defenders who are not
on official government delegations, and with the country in the grip of a crackdown,
it is becoming increasingly unlikely that government forces will ever be held accountable
for any of the killings of May 13.

The government of Uzbekistan has characterized
the killings in Andijan as "terrorist
acts" and put the death toll at 187, the majority
of them "bandits," "terrorists," and
the government agents they supposedly killed. It has acknowledged sixty
civilian deaths, and has attributed
all of them to the gunmen and not to fire by government forces. The government
has specifically claimed that the gunmen were the ones responsible for the
slaughter of civilians retreating from the main square where the protest had
been held. Government officials have stated publicly that "foreign powers," a
barely veiled reference to Western governments, instigated the uprising with the aim of carrying out revolts in Uzbekistan similar
to those in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.

As noted above, eyewitnesses interviewed by several international organizations have said most civilians
were killed by government forces which ambushed them, and that the
demonstrators were protesting government corruption and repression
and their own economic plight. The government has resolutely rejected calls by
the United Nations and the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe for an international
investigation that would have secured access to crucial evidence about the
deaths-hospital records, morgue records, forensic autopsy records, ballistic reports.

Instead, the government and the state-controlled media in Uzbekistan are working furiously to rewrite
history, to produce a new account of the Andijan events, and to bury the facts
that contradict it. This effort has created an atmosphere of fear and repression intended to silence those who would
challenge this version or seek justice for the deaths of their loved ones.

Four months after the massacre, the exact death toll remains
unknown. There is no clear and confirmed information
about what happened to the bodies of those killed. The fate of wounded people
taken to the hospital remains unknown. Details regarding the specific units
responsible for shooting unarmed civilians also have not been revealed.

A parliamentary commission was established in May but does
not appear to be examining the issue of the use of excessive force by
government forces.[2] The
commission has invited the diplomatic community to observe its work, but this
is no substitute for an independent international
investigation-involving ballistics, forensics and crime
scene experts and with access to eye-witnesses-that could fill the current information gap.

Human Rights Watch calls on the government to investigate
the detention process in Andijan and to hold accountable those responsible for
coercing statements through beatings and other mistreatment. Courts should be
specifically ordered to exclude as
evidence any such testimony.

We call on the government to immediately
stop using torture to extort confessions and to guarantee domestic and international monitors access to trials of human rights
defenders, journalists and political activists and to trials
of those accused of involvement in the Andijan violence.

We urge the government to cease the detention and harassment
of people who express their views
through peaceful assembly and expression
and to immediately release from
custody human rights defenders,
journalists and political activists wrongly detained and arrested, including:Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, Nurmukhammad Azizov, Akbar Oripov, Dilmurod Muhiddinov, Musozhon Bobozhono,
Hamdam Suleimanov, Norboi Kholjigitov, Abdusattor Irzaev, Khabbubulla Akpulatov,
Abdurasul Khudainazarov, Nosir Zokir, and Elena Urlaeva.

We reiterate our call to the Uzbek government to allow a
fully independent international
investigation into the events of May 13, and to hold accountable government
troops who used excessive force.

The international
community has an important role to play in pressing
the Uzbek government to undertake such an investigation. The United States and the European Union and its
candidate states, the United Nations, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
have all called for an international
investigation. These governments and organizations have played an active role
in protecting Uzbek refugees in Kyrgyzstan
and other countries, and have also
greatly supported the community of
human rights defenders in Uzbekistan
during this most recent crackdown.

Efforts by the United States
and the European Union to use the leverage at their disposal to obtain Uzbekistan's
consent to an international
investigation into the killings in Andijan have been far weaker, however. Both
the United States
and the European Union appear to have backed off rather than implement a more
robust strategy to hold the Uzbek government accountable for the loss of life.
Human Rights Watch calls on the government of the United States and the European
Union to adopt targeted sanctions against the Uzbek government given its
refusal to act on these calls. The European Union should, without further
delay, agree to partial suspension of its Partnership and Cooperation Agreement
with Uzbekistan.
Because in the absence of an independent investigation it has not been possible
to determine which Uzbek units took part in the Andijan massacre and cover-up,
we urge the United States to freeze any remaining military
and counter-terrorism assistance to
all units of the Uzbek armed forces, National Security
Services, and Ministry of Internal Affairs, pursuant to the Leahy amendment
which stipulates that U.S. government aid shall not be provided to units that
have participated in gross human rights
abuse.

Methodology and a Note on the Use of Pseudonyms

The present report
is based on dozens of interviews with victims
of human rights abuses and their
relatives; lawyers; journalists; human rights
defenders; and political activists. Some of the interviews were conducted in
Andijan and other towns and cities in Uzbekistan;
many others, particularly with refugees who fled Uzbekistan
after May 13, were conducted in Kyrgyzstan.
The Uzbek government did not respond to requests for meetings in June 2005, and
when this report went to press it had not responded to written requests for information
sent on May 24, 2005
and on August 24, 2005.
We have, wherever possible, endeavored to reflect the views of the Uzbek
government as they are stated in the government-run media
and Uzbek government websites.

Most of the names of the witnesses interviewed for this report have been changed to protect their security and the security
of their relatives. They have been assigned a pseudonym consisting of a
randomly chosen first name and a last initial that is the same as the first
letter of the first name, e.g., "Alisher A." There is no continuity of
pseudonyms with other Human Rights Watch reports
on Uzbekistan;
hence an "Alisher A." cited in the present report
is not the same person as an "Alisher A." cited in any previous Human Rights
Watch report.

Background

The Andijan Uprising,
Protests, and Massacre

The trigger for
the Andijan protests was the June 2004 arrest of twenty-three successful local
businessmen on charges of "religious extremism," for their alleged membership
in a banned Islamic movement, "Akramia."[3]
Some observers saw the prosecution
as a reaction to the businessmen's growing authority
in the Andijan community, garnered from having provided relatively high wages
and good benefits to their employees. As the trial
progressed from February 2005 into May, the businessmen's supporters began to protest the hearings. Popular discontent grew and, on May 10, some seven
hundred one thousand people gathered outside the Altinkul District Court to protest the proceedings. On May 11
police arrested three young supporters
of the businessmen who had participated in the protests.

As Andijan awaited a verdict in the trials
on May 12, relatives and supporters
of the businessmen took action. Around midnight on May 12-13, a group of
between fifty and one hundred men attacked a local police station and then
stormed the Ministry of Defense's barracks
no. 34, seizing weapons and a military
vehicle. The armed group then broke through the gates of the Andijan prison, where the twenty-three businessmen were held.
They freed the businessmen and hundreds of inmates. The men then moved to take
control of the hokimiat (local
administration building), with some of the group engaging in a heavy gun battle
with security officials outside the
National Security Service (SNB in its Russian acronym) on the way.

As the crowd grew on Bobur Square, the gunmen started taking
law enforcement and government officials as hostages. Some unarmed people in the
square also captured hostages and turned them over to the gunmen.

Throughout the morning of May 13, the armed group mobilized
its supporters using mobile phones,
urging people to gather for a protest rally in Bobur Square, in front of the hokimiat. The crowd attracted
other Andijan residents who hoped to voice their anger about depressed economic conditions and growing government repression; the numbers of unarmed civilians in the
square grew to thousands. As the day went on, Uzbek security
forces indiscriminately shot into
the crowd from armored personnel carriers
(APCs) and sniper positions above the square. Towards the evening, government
troops blocked off the square and then, without warning, opened fire, killing
and wounding unarmed civilians. People fled the square in several groups, the
first group using as a human shield numerous hostages seized earlier in the
day. As they tried to escape,
hundreds of people were shot by snipers or mowed down by troops firing from APCs. After the peak of the carnage,
government forces swept through the area and executed some of the wounded where
they lay. Those who managed to escape fled to neighboring
Kyrgyzstan
where they were gathered into a hastily-erected tent camp near the border.

Separate investigations conducted by Human Rights Watch, the
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and
the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) found that Uzbek government forces were
responsible for the majority of
civilian deaths.[4]Contrary to accounts provided by the Uzbek
government, these reports also found
that the large-scale demonstration that took place in Andijan on May 13 was not
related to Islamic extremism, but to the expression
of people's grievances regarding the economy, poverty, and abuses of
the judicial system.

Early Post-massacre Cover-up and Intimidation of Witnesses

In the immediate
aftermath of the massacre, government authorities
closed off Bobur Square
and Cholpon Prospect, where much of the killing had taken place. The bodies
were removed and signs and evidence of the massacre were erased. Authorities washed the blood from the street and painted
over the bullet-riddled buildings of
the surrounding neighborhood. The government stationed armed guards around the
local hospitals, and forbade independent journalists and human rights investigators access to the hospitals,
morgues, and cemeteries. Foreign
journalists were detained by police, threatened, and forcibly evicted from the city. Law enforcement officials
confiscated journalists' notes, video and tape recordings, and
photographs-vital evidence of the details of the massacre. In the hours and
days that followed, government road blocks were set up, and Andijan became a
closed city, with access granted only to a select few with government
permission. Rights defenders and journalists from outside Andijan were
prevented from entering to
investigate the circumstances of the massacre or speak to witnesses.

The government was unable to cover up or expunge the memories of the horrors committed on May 13 from the
minds of those who witnessed them first-hand. Some of the strongest evidence of
the government's excessive use of force that day came from survivors of and
eyewitnesses to the massacre. In an effort to prevent people with knowledge of
government wrongdoing from telling their stories,
government authorities initiated a
campaign to silence the residents of Andijan. Law enforcement and security agents joined forces with members of local
mahalla (neighborhood) committees,[5] going
door-to-door ordering people not to
speak to journalists or foreigners who visited, not to talk about the events of
May 13.[6]Local taxi drivers
were specifically instructed not to speak to outsiders.

The Criminal Investigation into the Andijan Events

On May
13, 2005 the Uzbek prosecutor general's office opened a criminal investigation into the events, which it
qualified as "acts of terrorism,"
"encroachment on the foundations of constitutional order," "mass disturbances,"
"hostage taking," and "other violent crimes."[7] Law
enforcement authorities launched a
series of arrests to apprehend the
leaders and the most active participants of the May 13 uprising
and protest.

On September 5 and 6, investigators from the prosecutor
general's office presented the results of their findings to the Uzbek
independent parliamentary commission set up to examine the events in Andijan.
The investigators reported that
heavily-armed rebel groups, supported
by foreign religious extremist organizations, seized over three hundred weapons
and committed "terrorist acts" in
Andijan. According to prosecutors, 187 people were killed and another 287 were
wounded in the violence. The investigators stated that the rebels took seventy
people hostage and killed fifteen of them.[8]

As a result of the investigation, an initial fifteen people
were charged with various crimes, including
violent attempt to overthrow the constitutional order, and their cases were
referred to the Supreme Court.[9] The trial of the fifteen is expected to begin on
September 20.[10]The prosecutor general's office also
stated that investigations are ongoing concerning an additional 106 people
charged with crimes related to their
"direct participation in terrorist
acts." In addition, charges of criminal
negligence were brought against twenty-five members of law enforcement agencies
and the military for failing to repel the attackers.[11]

Human Rights Watch received reports
indicating that there are serious
procedural violations in the investigation. Two witnesses told Human Rights
Watch that they learned of their relatives' arrests only from television news reports that showed the detainees. They spent months
trying to find out where their relatives were being held and were never allowed
to visit them in detention.[12]

In at least two cases brought to the attention of Human
Rights Watch, Uzbek authorities
prevented detainees charged with involvement in the Andijan events from
receiving appropriate legal representation, in blatant violation of international and domestic law. Two defense attorneys
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had encountered insurmountable
difficulties in obtaining access to their clients. The lawyers said that after
being hired by the detainees' families, they were constantly referred to one
official and then to another and could not access the detainees for weeks on
end. The attorneys told Human Rights Watch that their colleagues representing other Andijan detainees faced similar obstacles, indicating that the problem may be
more widespread.

One of the attorneys told Human Rights Watch that after he
finally received access to his client the authorities
barred him from access to important investigative materials,
such as the record of his client's psychological evaluation.[13]

Another defense lawyer, "Dilshod D." (not his real name),
had to argue and push for some twenty days, going from one official to another,
in order to get access to his client, who was being held in Tashkent prison. However, his efforts proved futile-when he
was finally allowed to meet with "Oktiboi O.," (not the man's real name) the
latter refused his services. The
lawyer was convinced that the detainee had been forced to reject him. He said:

Two huge guys, investigators, brought [Oktiboi O.] in.
Imagine a rabbit at gun point, [that's what he looked like]. He came in and
could not even sit down-he was so scared. One of the investigators tells him,
'So, you wanted to say something?' He tells me, 'I'm sorry, please, tell my mom
that I am fine, I have a lawyer and I don't need another one, and please do not
bother me ever again.' I tell the investigators, 'Do you know the law? Please,
leave the room. I need to talk to him in private.'
But [Oktiboi O.] was so scared, he tells them, 'Don't go!' He knew perfectly
well that if they leave now and he stays with me, they would then start beating
and torturing him to beat out of him
what he had told me and what I had told him When they finally left, he said,
'I beg you, just go away, now.' And he wrote a statement [that he refuses my
services]. Of course, we [later] included there that we do not trust this refusal,
because he had been subjected to very hard psychological and moral pressure so that he could not even talk.[14]

The official government investigation into the May 13 events
was by no means limited to the
arrest of individuals whom the government believed to be involved in the
violence. In an effort to obtain evidence that would support
the official version of events and with the aim of silencing witnesses to the
massacre, Uzbek authorities launched
a massive campaign to coerce testimony from Andijan residents and obtain the
return of hundreds of eyewitnesses who sought refuge in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

Uzbek Media Coverage of the Andijan Events

The government has used the media
to control and manipulate information
available to the public about the events of May 13. National news broadcasts repeatedly described
the gunmen involved in the takeover of government buildings as "terrorists" and "religious extremists" who committed
"terrorist acts" in an attempt to
take power and undermine Uzbekistan's
"progress" and "democratic reforms."[15]
A film aired on state-run television on July 30 titled, "Temptation Leading toward
the Abyss," claims that Akram Yuldashev, the reported
leader of the "Akramia" movement, organized the Andijan bloodshed. Yuldashev
has been in government custody since 1999 and is currently serving a
seventeen-year term in prison. The
film shows Yuldashev confessing to having urged his "religious brothers to
start fighting jihad."[16]

In several broadcasts, including
one showing excerpts from a press
conference given by President Islam Karimov
on May 17, the government categorically
denies that any peaceful protests occurred in Andijan.[17]
At least two people interviewed for state television broadcasts claim that the
gunmen, and not the law enforcement representatives,
fired on the crowds.[18]

The government broadcast "public confessions" in which men
allegedly "tricked" or threatened
into participating in armed attacks on May 13 admit to their wrongdoing and beg
for forgiveness from their families, compatriots,
and President Karimov. The men are
often shown crying as they speak. Some are shown being handed over to their
families and mahalla committees for "rehabilitation" and "education."[19]

President Karimov
has accused "foreign powers" of having instigated the Andijan violence with the
aim of seeing the government overthrown by a popular revolt similar to those in Georgia,
Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan.
[20] This view
was reflected in the Uzbek media. One
government official stated that he believes "international
organizations directly or indirectly support
the extremist groups" supposedly responsible for the violence and loss of life
in Andijan.[21] One
television broadcast announced that, "Certain forces, involved in what happened
in Kyrgyzstan, are now
attempting to destabilize the situation in Uzbekistan in the same way."[22]

Media broadcasts also strongly denied the need for an international investigation, claiming
that foreign agencies and experts are biased and that Uzbekistan has the
capacity to carry out an objective investigation.[23]

Coercive Pressure for Testimony

When a Human Rights Watch researcher was in Andijan in
mid-July, two months after the massacre, scores of uniformed and plain clothed
security officers and police were
patrolling the streets-especially near the sites where heavy shooting took
place on May 13- where a few bullet marks were still visible on the buildings.
People were cautiously casting glances around for mahalla committee members
who, according to Andijan residents, have stepped up their unrelenting
surveillance of neighborhoods throughout the city. Mahalla committee members
also went house to house, searching for relatives of those who had fled to Kyrgyzstan
on May 13, in order to pressure them
to convince their relatives to return.[24]

People in Andijan were explicitly and repeatedly
warned by local police and mahalla committee members not to talk to outsiders,
and were exposed to an incessant propaganda campaign in the mass media. Andijan residents were less inclined than
ever to acknowledge that they had witnessed the May 13 massacre, let alone
speak about the ongoing crackdown in
the city.[25]

It was in this atmosphere of fear that the authorities detained hundreds-and perhaps thousands-of
people in Andijan, with the purported aim of obtaining testimony about the crimes committed on May 13, as the government has
defined them. Referred to by the authorities
and detainees alike as "filtration,"[26]
the process involved detaining people who might have direct or even remote
knowledge of the events of May 13, bringing
fabricatedmisdemeanor charges against them, and using
their time in detention to coerce testimony from them. Police and security agents threatened or severely beat many of those
detained in order to coerce them to confess to belonging to extremist religious
organizations and bearing arms while
participating in the May 13 protest; to name others at the protest; or to incriminate others in violence during
the protest. Most detainees were released after they served out ten-to-fifteen-day
administrative sentences and signed coerced confessions or testimony against
third parties.

At the same time, local authorities
also threatened and exerted other extraordinary pressure
on family members of those who had fled to Kyrgyzstan
to convince their relatives to return to Uzbekistan, likely so that they too
could be detained and questioned. Some of the confessions and testimonies
coerced from the Andijan detainees were apparently used by the Uzbek government
to fabricate cases against those who
fled. The Uzbek prosecutor general's office also compiled more than two hundred
extradition requests for the refugees. Based on these requests four refugees seeking
asylum were forcibly returned to Uzbekistan in early June (see below), and
Kyrgyz law enforcement authorities
were already interrogating dozens of other refugees beforesustained international
pressure allowed the evacuation of
all but fifteen of the refugees to a safer third country, Romania, on July 29. Eleven of the fifteen were evacuated on
September 15, 2005.

Detention and Abuse in Andijan

As noted above, the Uzbek government has a legitimate
interest in prosecuting the crimes
committed on May 13 and in securing
as much information and testimony
about them as is necessary for this purpose. But the torture and ill-treatment
in custody documented below, as well as the arbitrary nature of the detentions,
are not legitimate methods of law enforcement; they blatantly violate the Uzbek
government's obligations under both customary and conventional international law, including
the Convention against Torture and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,[27]
as well as the standards set out by the U.N. Body of Principles
for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention and Imprisonment.[28]

In July 2005, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than a
dozen people who were detained in the "filtration" process in June and July.
Many other former detainees whom Human Rights Watch tried
to meet refused to speak with us, fearing
further persecution. For example, one of the witnesses who had been through
"filtration" located five of his cell mates and wanted to introduce Human Rights
Watch to these people, since they initially agreed to provide testimony.
However, when we contacted each one
individually, all five said they would not talk about their experience. According to one witness, one of the men
told him, "It was a nightmare and I don't want to go through it again. Please,
do not contact me ever again with
these questions."[29]

According to witnesses, hundreds if not thousands of people
have been through the "filtration" process. "Fatima F." (not her real name),
told Human Rights Watch that when she went to the Andijan City Police Department
to inquire about her two sons who had been detained, policemen there told her
that "over 4,200 people have undergone filtration," mostly in the city police
department but also in detention facilities in other towns, such as Pakhtabad
and Balakhchi.[30]

Targets of filtration include
those who were seen or reported to
be seen on the square during the
protest; their relatives, friends
and acquaintances; relatives of those who sought refuge in Kyrgyzstan, as well
as of those who were killed or arrested; those who live near the sites where
the May 13 killings took place; and those who used to work at the enterprises belonging to the twenty-three businessmen whom
the government had charged with religious extremism. In some cases, those
detained appeared to have no connection whatsoever to the May 13 events.

Initial Detention

Initial detentions were carried
out by local police patrolmen, at times accompanied by police investigators.
Some of the witnesses said they were explicitly told that they were being
arrested. For example, "Rovshan R." (not his real name) said that at the time
of his arrest two police investigators told him that he was a suspect in a criminal case but didnot produce a warrant or explain the charges or the alleged criminal act.[31]

Other detainees were initially told they would be questioned
for a few hours and then released. For example, Fatima F. said that on June 26,
four armed policemen came to her house. They did not identify themselves, but
said they were from the Andijan Province Department of Internal
Affairs. They wanted to take her son, twenty-year-old "Kabyl K." (not his real
name) away, but Fatima F.resisted. The policemen then ordered her to bring her son to the police station the same night.
When she did so, at 7:00 that evening, the authorities
took Kabyl K. into custody, telling Fatima F.. they would release him later
that day or possibly the next morning and suggesting she should go home and
wait. Starting that evening, Fatima F.. regularly inquired about her son's
whereabouts; each time the authorities
told her he would be released in a few days, providing the mother with no
explanation for his prolonged detention. Kabyl K. was released only on July 6,
after being physically abused as part of the filtration process. Meanwhile, Fatima
F.'s other son, twenty-eight-year-old "UktamU."
was detained in early July and at the time of the interview he was still in
detention (see below).[32]

In other cases, authorities
questioned a person and his relatives several times before finally putting them
through the filtration procedure. "Rasul R." (not his real name) believed he
and his wife were detained on June 18 because one of his sons had been arrested
immediately after the May 13 protest
and another one was among the refugees who fled to Kyrgyzstan. He told Human Rights
Watch:

Shortly after May 13 a local policeman and two
investigators from Tashkent
came to my house. They took me and my wife for an interrogation at the [Andijan
Province Department of Internal
Affairs]. I asked them not to interrogate my wife, because she was very sick.
They asked me where my son was and why I was not bringing
him up [properly]. It lasted for several hours, and then they let us go. In the
following month, they brought me in for questioning twice more, and then
detained me on June 18 saying they would "filter" me.[33]

Interrogations

According to witnesses' accounts, most detainees were
initially brought to the Andijan Province Department of Internal Affairs, where they were subjected to preliminary interrogations, and then transferred to the
Andijan City Police Department. "Rovshan R." (not his real name) believed he
was detained because a local mahalla committee reported
his participation in the May 13 protest to the authorities.
He told Human Rights Watch:

When we arrived
at the UVD [Andijan Province Department of Internal
Affairs], they brought me into a room with very little air. There were about
ten people sitting on the benches in front of me and about five on each side.
We were all handcuffed. I sat for a long time, and then they took me up into a
room on the second or third floor. A man in civilian clothes who did not
identify himself started asking where I was on May 13. I told him I was at the
protest, and stayed there till approximately 5:00 p.m. when the shooting started.

He started beating me and yelling, 'You are lying! You
are hiding the truth! We have information
that you were on the square with an automatic gun. Confess!' And [he] punched
me in the chest. I was insisting I was innocent and never possessed arms Then
they brought me back to the room where others were sitting and some time later
they told me and some others to get into their police car and escorted us to
the GUVD [Andijan City Police Department].[34]

Another witness, "Bakhrom B." (not his real name), was
detained on July 4 because he lived near the prison
which had been taken over on the night of May 12, and the investigators
believed "he had seen a lot." He too was questioned and beaten at the Andijan
Province Department of Internal
Affairs before being transferred to the city police department. He mentioned
that some detainees were held overnight and beaten at the province department.
He said:

I got lucky-a guy who works in the . . . UVD recognized
me and apparently said something to the investigators who then transferred me
to the city police department. But some were staying there for several
days-they told me it was especially hard at night, when the interrogators were
beating them mercilessly. One of the guys sitting next to me had a large bruise
on his right cheek-bone.[35]

While at the Andijan City Police Department the detainees
were held in a large auditorium.
Those interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that there were about fifty to
seventy people in the auditorium,
and each day the police took some people away and brought in new people. Each
of the witnesses spent two to five days in the auditorium.
They said they slept on chairs and on the floor, and were given nothing to eat
but bread and water. One by one, the detainees were taken out for questioning.

Interviewees said that the interrogators, judging by their
accents, were from Tashkent, Jizzakh, Samarkand and other areas of Uzbekistan. Two witnesses said their
interrogators were drunk. All said that during
the interrogations they were subjected to prolonged beatings and threats as the
interrogators were forcing them to confess or provide incriminating
testimony against others. Rovshan R. described
one of these interrogations to Human Rights Watch:

The interrogators were drunk and weren't wearing shirts; they took us into a room one by one and
were asking, 'Where did you hide the weapon that you had? While you were here
we inquired with your neighbors and they said you had arms.' They put me
against the wall into a spread-eagle position, and started beating-on the arms,
on the legs, and on the genitals.

It did not matter whether you said anything or not-the
beatings continued. They did not pay attention to any pleas for mercy, they
were just repeating, 'Find the
weapon that you hid.' Then they forced me onto the floor and told me to do
push-ups. When I could not do any more and fell they started beating me in my
stomach with their feet They took me back to the auditorium,
but the next day a new group of interrogators called me up and it started all
over again.[36]

Fatima F.., who came to the city police department to look
for her detained older son, Uktam U.., said that at one point one of the guards
got tired of her screaming and yelling and decided to show her son to her. Fatima
F. said:

Uktam ran to the bars [separating us] and started crying,
'Mama, they are beating me! They handcuff me and beat me!' and then he showed
me bruises on his shoulders. The guard immediately
grabbed him on the neck and took him away, and then pushed me hard and told me
to get the hell out of there.[37]

Bakhrom B. said that he was holding out during the beatings, but on the fifth day of the
interrogations one of the investigators broke him. He said:

They were questioning me every day-one investigator, then
another. They tied my hands behind my back and beat me in the chest and on the
back; then with a club on my feet I knew nothing-on May 13 I went out, saw the
broken gates of the prison and some
bodies and went back home. But they did not believe me. On the last day another
investigator, from Kokand,
came. He pretended to be "soft," started talking to me, and then said, 'You
have a choice. If you don't talk I can give you a razor to cut your veins;
you'll die and nobody would care. Nobody can help you anyway.' And then I
signed a statement [about my participation in the May 13 events] myself.[38]

Misdemeanor Hearings and Detention

The interrogations at the Andijan Province Department of Internal Affairs were just the beginning of the
detainees' ordeal. In order to "legalize" the detention, the authorities fabricated
administrative charges against the detainees. Several witnesses explained to
Human Rights Watch that while they were being held in the auditorium, investigators prepared
papers charging them with petty crimes,
such as hooliganism, unrelated to the events of May 13. All of them were then
brought without counsel before a local court, which sentenced them to ten to
fifteen days of detention. Most detainees admitted to the charges, hoping this
would get them released quickly.

"Khatanjon Kh." (not his real name) was first detained and
questioned on May 20 together with his nephew and elderly father. In the
following month, investigators repeatedly
came to his house, asking about his two sons, who had fled to Kyrgyzstan. On June 20, he was
detained again and brought to the Andijan City Police Department. He told Human
Rights Watch:

After I spent two days in the auditorium, they showed me the papers-that I allegedly got
into a fight. They [the investigators] introduced me to another man with whom
we were supposed to appear in court. They told us to describe
our "fight" in court, and we did. It took no more than five minutes and the
judge sentenced us to ten days of detention. They fabricated
similar cases against everyone who
was in the auditorium.[39]

Another witness, "Rasul R." (not his real name), interviewed
separately, provided Human Rights Watch with an almost identical account,
adding that he had no choice but to admit to the administrative charges and the
sentence. He said, "They told us that otherwise they would not let us out; I
saw a man in the auditorium who
refused to play along with their scenario
and he spent fifteen days there, and they weren't going to release him. I
thought I would be better off if I agreed to the charges."[40]

Rovshan R. said that the fabricated
scenarios were detailed, that every
participant was given clear instructions about what to say in court, and that
even the judges seemed to be reading from a script:

In the court we entered the hearing
[room] and all gave the testimony as the investigators instructed us. The judge
was also acting, he was scolding us, 'Why did you do that?! It's shameful for
grown-ups to behave like that, to get into a scuffle!' And we had to apologize
to each other in front of the judge. The judge . . . was just reading from a
statement prepared by the
investigators. Of course, there were no lawyers, just the judge and the police.[41]

After the hearing,
the detainees were brought back to the basement holding cells of the Andijan
City Police Department to serve their misdemeanor sentences. Some were later
moved to other detention facilities, such as Balakhchi police department, as
there was apparently no room left in the Andijan City Police Department. The
interrogators used the time during
the administrative detention to produce more detailed confessions from the
detainees and also to collect additional incriminating
information about other participants
of the May 13 protest and especially about the refugees who at the time were
still in Kyrgyzstan.

Khatanjon Kh. said that while serving his misdemeanor
sentence, he was interrogated daily by different investigators, and each time
subjected to prolonged beatings and other methods of coercion.

They put me against the wall, and were beating me in the
chest with their fists. Then they forced me down to the floor, my legs
stretched, and started beating me on the soles of my feet with their clubs.
They demanded that I confess I was an 'Akramist,' kept asking about my sons and
other relatives, about other 'Akramists' whom they said I should have seen on
the square. It went on and on

The next day, there was another group of interrogators,
from Jizzakh. They said they would bring
my wife and daughter-in-law-'we'll see how you'll talk then.'

I am an old man, and for my young cell mates it was even
worse-they were crying and could hardly walk when they returned to the cell
after the interrogations, they were all badly beaten-on the chest, on the back,
in the kidneys.[42]

Khatanjon Kh. said that the investigators showed him
photographs of refugees who were in the camp in Kyrgyzstan and asked for detailed information about them, trying to force him to state
that they were members of "Akramia" and that he had seen them on Bobur Square
participating in violent acts.[43]

Rasul R. also said that interrogators showed him photographs
of those who participated in the protest-about one hundred photographs of those
who were killed and some three or four hundred of those in the camp. He
identified one of his sons among the refugees, and the interrogators started
beating and questioning him again. He found out that another son, who also
participated in the protest, had been arrested, but his interrogators told him
not to even attempt to look for him. He said:

Two investigators, both from Tashkent, were beating me and cursing. I am
fifty-five years old, and they were yelling and kicking me because I did not
want to sign any statements. It was terrible.
[While in the cell] I could constantly hear people screaming-it was impossible
to sleep.[44]

Detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch were released at
the end of their administrative terms and forced to sign statements saying that
they had no complaints about the police treatment. Each was also required to
pay 1,200 som (about U.S. $1.10) for each day of detention. Some said the authorities explicitly warned them not to talk to anybody
about their detention.

The Pursuit of Victims and Eyewitnesses Who Fled to Kyrgyzstan

Roughly five hundred people fled Andijan on May 13 and
received refuge in tent camps set up along the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border by the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and administered by the
Kyrgyz Department of Migration Services.
Beginning in early June, the Uzbek government organized a campaign of
harassment and coercion in order to pressure
families of refugees who had fled the Andijan violence and crossed the border
into Kyrgyzstan to persuade
their relatives to return to Uzbekistan.

In the media the
government repeatedly emphasized the
poor conditions of the Kyrgyz refugee camp and alleged that those living in the
camp were either the willing or coerced perpetrators of the violence in Andijan
on May 13, forced to walk to Kyrgyzstan,
and held against their will in the camp.[45]
The government claimed that it simply wanted its citizens to return to their
homeland and families who were waiting for them.[46]
Uzbek authorities set up a tent camp
near the border to receive returnees.[47]
The family of one refugee interviewed by Human Rights Watch told her that the
local mahalla committee had posted the names of all of the refugees along with
statements saying, "These people are not guilty-let them return to their home!"[48] However,
other government statements made the contradictory assertion that those who
fled were terrorists and criminals.[49]

However, three accounts by family members and by refugees
themselves indicated that the government detained and interrogated refugees
upon return, subjected some to ill-treatment, and forced them to make public
confessions or false statements about their participation in the Andijan events
and their experience in the refugee
camp. In one case, a source told Human Rights Watch that two women who returned
to Andijan had been imprisoned and
then forced to make public statements on national television.[50] These
women appeared in a May 25 national broadcast stating that gunmen forced people
to go to Kyrgyzstan
and had tried to prevent the women
from returning.[51]

For three weeks in June, Human Rights Watch researchers
witnessed hundreds of people coming to meet with their relatives in the refugee
camp in Kyrgyzstan.[52] Andijan
government authorities pressured relatives of the refugees into traveling
to the camp for family visits in buses and cars organized by the government. [53]

The Uzbek authorities
used threats, coercion, and unscrupulous propaganda to pressure
families to bring their relatives
back to Andijan. Officials often threatened serious
repercussions for family members if
they failed to convince their relatives in Kyrgyzstan to return. In some
cases, Uzbek agents themselves entered the camp and attempted to remove
refugees or interfered with the family meetings.

Meanwhile, Uzbek authorities
attempted to convince refugees and their relatives that the situation in Kyrgyzstan was dangerous for the refugees, that
refugees had been taken to Kyrgyzstan
by force, and that "leaders" in the camp were preventing them from going back,
while in Andijan the conditions were completely safe for refugees to return.[54]

Coercive pressure on refugees' relatives

Uzbek authorities
harassed many of the families of refugees who had fled to Kyrgyzstan, subjecting them to arbitrary
detention, illegal searches, threats and, in some cases, ill-treatment in
detention, in order to pressure them
into bringing their relatives back
to Andijan.

"Rustam R." (not his real name), a twenty-four-year-old
refugee in the camp in Kyrgyzstan,
said that police and security agents
threatened to arrest his brother if Rustam did not return:

My father really tried
to convince me to go back. At the same time, he told me that the police and SNB
come to our house and search it. My twenty-year-old brother and my father are
being called into the procuracy [prosecutor's
office] frequently. My father said, "If you don't come back, they'll put me or
your brother in jail instead." They had threatened my father saying, "If you
don't get your son, then you will have to walk home to Andjian." My father was pressured into coming. He said, "I absolutely had to
come. They just don't leave us alone. They come from the hokimiat almost every day and pressure
us to get you back."[55]

Another refugee, "Marat M." (not his real name) told Human
Rights Watch that his mother had visited him several times and had described the dire situation of their family:

My mother has come two or three times to visit me. She
told me that my father is in prison
now. He also participated in the [May 13] meeting. They detained my brother, questioned him and
released him. They told him that they would continue to work that way until I came home. My mother said that [members] from the mahalla committee are also asking
people to sign documents saying, "My son or daughter was detained by terrorists."[56]

During a visit
from her mother, "Galima G." (not her real name) learned about the detentions
of her father and father-in-law and the possible risks
that she could face should she go back to Uzbekistan:

[During the
visit] my mother said to me, "You shouldn't go back. Your father and
father-in-law are in prison. If you
come you will be arrested and tortured and made to make statements that the
people here are terrorists. But when
I leave I will try to pull you out but you must resist. You must stay here."
My father-in-law was in his old age. He could not walk and thus didn't go to
the square. My father had an accident and was home sick. I don't know why they
were taken.[57]

According to "Gulnara G." (not her real name), her mother
and stepfather visited on or around June 14, traveling to Kyrgyzstan on a bus full of other
relatives with Andijan government and SNB officials accompanying them. Her
relatives told her that the situation in Andijan remained dangerous: her
brother-in-law had been detained, questioned about Gulanara G., and then
beaten. Police had searched their home without a warrant. However, her mother
needed to put on a show for the Uzbek authorities
observing her. Gulnara G. told Human Rights Watch:

During the
visit, the SNB and local government officials were watching, so when my mother
was leaving, she felt forced to shout at me and say, "Come! You must come back
with us!" One of the local government officials also talked to me. She was
crying and saying, "Come back. I'll protect you. We know that you are a good
person." The Uzbek officials wouldn't let my mother give me any clothes, only
some cucumbers. They told her, "You're giving her things so that she can stay?"
They also said, "If you try to stay in the camp, then you will have even bigger
problems than you have now."[58]

One young man described
to Human Rights Watch how authorities
successfully blackmailed his relatives around June 11 by exploiting his
mother's desperate need for an operation:

My father came to visit me and my younger brother . . . One person from the local
government participated in the conversation with my father. . . .My father was
trying to convince us to come home . . . but we consistently refused. Then he
told us that our mother was in desperate need of an emergency operation. She
had liver problems and after May 13, it got worse . . . My father said that
the hokimiat and SNB officials had
told him, "If you don't bring your
children, then your wife will not get an operation." My brother decided to go
back, in order to save our mother. I have no news about what's happened to my
brother, to my family since then.[59]

Human Rights Watch has no information
as to whether the man's mother received the needed operation.

In at least two instances, Uzbek authorities
attempted to convince refugees to return to Uzbekistan by encouraging them to
admit their "guilt" in exchange for guarantees of safety. "Marat M." described a conversation with his mother:

My mother came for a family visit. She had with her a
document that was already prepared
for me to sign. It was a request for amnesty. The text read:"I indeed participated in the meeting, but I
ask for forgiveness. I admit my guilt." My mother said if I just sign this,
then no one will touch me. She really believed this. "Sign it, son, sign it,"
she said. I didn't agree to sign it because I am afraid of what will happen to
me when I go back.[60]

On June 13, an elderly official who was accompanying a group
of relatives arriving from Andijan
sought a Human Rights Watch researcher's assistance to help him get into the
camp and "release" the refugees. As he was arguing that the refugees have
nothing to fear if they return, several women standing behind him-making sure
that the man could not see them-started shaking their heads desperately in
disagreement. When the official stepped away for several minutes to make a
phone call, one of the women started crying and quickly whispered:

Don't believe him. We don't want [our relatives] to come
back; it is dangerous for them to return-we know they'll take them to prison We have no choice, we had to come, otherwise
we would be in trouble ourselves and other family members who stayed home as
well. But I will tell my husband not to come back-I am so scared for him, but I
don't know what to do And now you should go-we mustn't talk to you, we can't;
if they see we'll all be in trouble.[61]

Attempts to Remove Refugees by Force

In at least two instances, undercover Uzbek authorities or family members of refugees attempted to
forcibly remove asylum-seekers from the camp.

On the afternoon of June 14, while many people were coming
to meet with their relatives, an elderly woman came into the camp saying she
wanted to see her son, "Khasan Kh." (not his real name). The woman appeared to
be sick and hardly able to walk. The Kyrgyz authorities
guarding the camp allowed her to be accompanied by two robust men who appeared
to be helping her to walk to the meeting tent. Minutes later, as witnessed by a
Human Rights Watch researcher, the two men dragged Khasan Kh. out of the tent,
through the barrier at the camp
entrance and towards their car parked near the camp, with his mother running
behind. Initially the Kyrgyz migration authorities
who witnessed the incident and soldiers guarding the camp did nothing to stop
the men. A Human Rights Watch researcher brought the incident to the attention
of Kyrgyz guards, who finally fought the two men off the refugee, forcing them
to release Khasan Kh. just as they were shoving him into the car.[62]

Khasan Kh. later said that during
the meeting with his mother, after he rejected her attempts to convince him to
return with her, "The two men just jumped on me, twisted my arms, and dragged
me out."[63]His mother explained to Khasan Kh. that she
could no longer stand the pressure
from neighborhood officials to bring
her son back, and that she had to agree when they suggested bringing him back by force.[64]

A week later, the sixty-five-year-old mother of one of the
twenty-three Andijan businessmen charged with participation in "Akramia" described the visit of her relatives on June 20 and the
Uzbek authorities' attempts to
remove her from the camp by force:

My two daughters-in-law came to visit. I left my tent and
walked out to [the meeting area]. As soon as I got close to the camp's perimeter, a woman from the mahalla committee grabbed
me and started pulling me out of the camp. She was saying, "Come back, come
take care of your children. Everything will be fine with you. We will protect
you." Some UN[HCR] people and another person heard me yelling and pulled me
away from the woman and freed me. I was very afraid.[65]

Consequences of Return

Little is known about people who returned to Andijan after
fleeing to Kyrgyzstan.
The government has repeatedly
claimed they faced neither persecution nor pressure,
thoughaccounts from refugees who heard
from visitors about the treatment of those who went back suggest that there is
a basis for fearing persecution.

One young man told Human Rights Watch about his mentally ill
brother who needed medical treatment that he believed would be unavailable to
him in the initial refugee camp and so chose to return to Andijan. He was
ill-treated and forced to confess and ask for forgiveness simply for
participating in the demonstration on Bobur
Square in Andijan. Tolib T. told Human Rights
Watch:

My father came on June 10 or 11 and told me that my
brother came straight home from the camp. On the next day soldiers with guns
came to the house and detained him. He was detained in jail for twenty-one days.
He was beaten and not given any food in prison.
They released him and he is home now. People from the television station came
to our house and forced him to give a statement about his participation in the
May 13 meeting and to ask for forgiveness. They then showed that the president forgives him. They also forced my mother
to give a presentation on television. She was forced to send a message to me,
saying, "Why don't you think of us, come back. Nothing will happen to you."[66]

Various refugees
told Human Rights Watch how visiting family members related to them stories about the abuse of returned refugees. Their
accounts could not be corroborated by Human Rights Watch or other independent
observers. During
his relatives' visit to the camp, "Adham A." (not his real name) heard of the
abuse of a fellow refugee whom he had known in the camp and who had returned to
Andijan with his family:

There was a guy [called "B"]. He left with his family
when they came to visit. After that we read an article in the newspaper about
him saying he had been forgiven and showing him with his family [the paper,
dated June 22, 2005,
was seen by a Human Rights Watch researcher.] Shortly after that he was taken
to prison. Then I learned from my
parents who came to visit that he is now in bed and they are waiting for him to
die. He was tortured. They want us to believe that we will be forgiven and that
we will be safe, but they will arrest us and torture us.[67]

"Hamdam H." (not his real name) also recounted to Human
Rights Watch the information his
relatives had given him about some of the other refugees who had returned to
Andjian,

One man's relatives came and insisted he return-they said
that the hokimiat had given them
assurances. He was free for ten days. Then he suddenly disappeared for three or
four days. Then the soldiers brought him back [home]. I heard that he cannot
move and that his condition is very bad.

Six young men returned voluntarily.
One of them was my neighbor's son. My family was told that all of them
disappeared for some time. My neighbor's son was taken into prison for twenty-one days and tortured. They also
showed him on TV and made him say that we were being taken care of like pigs
[in the refugee camp].[68]

The Drive for Extraditions of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Uzbek authorities
sought the extradition from Kyrgyzstan
of numerous refugees and asylum seekers on charges of terrorism, attempting to overthrow the government, and
organizing mass disturbances. Throughout June and July, the numbers of those
sought for extradition steadily rose.[69]
By July 16, Kyrgyz authorities had
detained a total of thirty-three asylum seekers following Uzbek extradition
requests.[70] Four of
the detained asylum seekers were returned involuntarily
(see below). On June 20, the Uzbek government stated that 131 people in the
refugee camp had been "identified as direct participants in acts of terrorism," that "charges had been launched against them
in absentia," and that the prosecutor general's office had requested the
extradition of 133 people who at that time were in Kyrgyzstan.[71] Several
weeks later, more than two hundred refugees were believed to be on an
extradition list.[72] On July
19 the Kyrgyz prosecutor's office, jointly with the Kyrgyz National Security Service,
began interrogating refugees in the camp, with a view to their possible
extradition.[73]

Uzbek authorities
thus launched criminal charges
against roughly half of the Uzbek asylum-seekers in Kyrgyzstan, exposing as hollow the
claims by relatives that people who returned of their own accord would be
"forgiven" and safe. The Uzbek government also filed requests with Russian and
Kazakh authorities for the
extradition of others, including
refugees, whom the government alleged were involved in the Andijan events.[74]

On July 27, Kyrgyz authorities
released fourteen of the twenty-nine detained refugees and asylum seekers and
allowed them to leave by airlift along with the 439 refugees, nearly the entire
population of the refugee camp, to Romania. The remaining fifteen in
detention included
twelve individuals who had escaped from Andijan prison
on the night of May 12; five of these twelve are the businessmen who had been
on trial in Uzbekistan for alleged
membership in the Akramia movement;[75]
six of the twelve men had been in pre-trial
detention in Andijan prison on what
are believed to be politically-motivated charges.[76]On September 15, 2005, as this report went to press,
these eleven men were released and airlifted to the United Kingdom. As of this writing, four of the group of fifteen remain in
custody in Osh: a man who had been in the Andijan prison
serving the remainder of a fourteen-year sentence on drug trafficking charges
and three men who were requested for
extradition by the Uzbek authorities
for their alleged participation in hostage-taking and killings on May 13.

The Uzbek government stated that the guilt of the latter
three "had been proven," and has severely criticized
the UNHCR for seeking to prevent their extradition[77]
and misrepresented international pressure
on Kyrgyzstan
to abide by its obligations under both customary and conventional international law.[78]Among those obligations are the duty of
nonrefoulement, or the prohibition on returning people to a place where their
life or freedom may be at serious risk, or where they may be at risk
of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.[79]

Deportation and "Disappearance" of Four Asylum Seekers

On June 9,
2005 the government of Kyrgyzstan
forcibly returned to Uzbekistan
four asylum seekers. The men subsequently disappeared in Uzbek custody. For two
months there was no information
regarding the men's whereabouts, until Uzbek authorities
in August stated privately that the
men were being held incommunicado in Tashkent
prison and were facing charges that
carried the death penalty. However,
no international agency was able to
confirm this information and nothing
is known about the men's condition in detention.

The lack of information
about these men raised fears that they may have been ill-treated in custody and
substantiated fears that other people returned to Uzbekistan through extradition,
deportation, or even voluntary return might also "disappear" or face
incommunicado detention.

The four men were among sixteen asylum seekers whom Kyrgyz
authorities had taken into custody
on June 9 from the refugee camp in Sasyk, pursuant to an extradition request
issued by the government of Uzbekistan.
They are Dilshod Khajiev, Tavakal Khajiev, Hasan Shakirov, and Mukhammad
Kadirov.

UNHCR officials were aware of the transfer of the sixteen
men to Kyrgyz police custody, accompanied the convoy to the Jalal Abad City
Police Department, and remained on site to monitor the treatment of the
detainees. However, at one point during
the evening of June 9, when all UNHCR staff left the police station, Kyrgyz
authorities handed over the
above-mentioned four men-to Uzbek SNB officers. Kyrgyz and Uzbek SNB officers
signed a document confirming the transfer of the four to Uzbek SNB custody.[80]

The action sparked an outcry about the Kyrgyz authorities' violation of international
law. The return of the men, all registered with UNHCR as asylum seekers, was a
blatant violation of the prohibition of refoulement.[81]
The action also contravened the right
to seek and enjoy asylum[82] and may
have violated the right to freedom
from torture,[83] as well
as the rights to life, liberty, and
security.[84]

To stave off criticism,
officials from the Department of Migration Services,
which is under the authority of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, produced four identical handwritten documents that they initially claimed had
been written and signed by the four
asylum seekers free of duress and that expressed
the men's consent to be returned to Uzbekistan.[85]
No independent evaluation of the documents was permitted and no independent
access to the men prior to the
handover was allowed, creating significant concern among the international community that the statements had been
coerced. UNHCR and OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights) deemed the returns to have been forcible and a violation of international law.[86]The Kyrgyz government announced it would
undertake an investigation into the incident and vowed that the officials
responsible would be punished.[87] However,
subsequent to this announcement, Kyrgyz officials made reference to the men's written statements in an attempt to justify the
illegal return of the four men.[88]

After their transfer to Uzbekistan on June 9, the four men
disappeared in Uzbek custody. Kyrgyz officials and international
organizations based in Uzbekistan
told us they were unable to establish the men's whereabouts or well-being. As
late as July, family members of two of the men had not been informed even that the men had been returned to Uzbekistan;
they had no information about the
men's location in custody.[89]

Finally in early August, the government of Uzbekistan
revealed, though not publicly, that the men were being held in Tashkent prison (UYa 64/IZ-1) and were charged with serious offenses, including
terrorism and aggravated
premeditated murder (Criminal Code articles 155 and 97, respectively); [90] these
charges carry the death penalty, which remains in place in Uzbekistan.[91] Three of
the men were also accused of spreading misinformation
about the Andijan events in the mass media
and discrediting the Uzbek government. According to the government of Uzbekistan,
once returned to Uzbek detention all four men signed self-incriminating statements confessing to the charges
against them.[92]

In July there were rumors and unconfirmed reports that one of the men, Hasan Shakirov, had
died in Uzbek custody due to torture. There were also unconfirmed reports as of late July that Tavakal Khajiev had been hospitalized due
to severe injuries inflicted as a
result of torture;[93] Human
Rights Watch was unable to independently confirm these reports.
In August, the prosecutor general's office denied this allegation.[94]

There were concerns also that the four men's relatives living
in Uzbekistan
were harassed by law enforcement authorities
and coerced into giving incriminating
testimony. A relative of one of the four men told Human Rights Watch that a
person close to that man had been summoned by police in mid-May, detained for
two days, and forced to say that the man had "taken up arms."[95]

The Crackdown on Civil Society Following the May 13
Events

The government of Uzbekistan has a long record of
retaliation against those who expose government abuses. It has aggressively persecuted
human rights defenders, subjecting
them to politically motivated detention and arrest, police harassment,
surveillance, and torture.[96] Independent
journalists and others who expressed
criticism of government policy have
been subjected to reprisals; there are virtually no independent media remaining in Uzbekistan. In addition, shortly
after Uzbekistan attained
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991,
President Karimov's government
banned the nascent independent political opposition in the country; members of
these parties were jailed, beaten, threatened, and some were forced into exile.
The main political opposition parties, Erk (Freedom) and Birlik (Unity) remain
unregistered and outlawed to this day.[97]Few independent or critical
voices remain.

As part of the crackdown
following the killings in Andijan, Uzbek authorities
have engaged in a campaign of repression
against human rights defenders,
political activists, and independent journalists. In violation of the right to free expression,
Uzbek authorities have targeted
these individuals for arrest, detention, confiscation of possessions, and
harassment.[98] In some
cases these individuals were the victims
of attacks by anonymous assailants, in others they were the targets of
government-sponsored "hate rallies" and mob-led attempted evictions. This persecution has been accompanied by a
smear campaign in government-sponsored media
against journalists and human rights
defenders.

The government actions described below seem aimed at
silencing and punishing civil society activists and intimidating
anyone who might think to engage in civil society work or exercise their rights to freedom of speech and expression to articulate views of which the government
does not approve. The campaign appears to serve the purpose not only of
concealing information about what
happened on May 13 but, more broadly, of stifling independent voices that
scrutinize the authorities, expose
corruption, and demand accountable government and implementation of human rights norms.

The list of cases documented in this section is not
exhaustive. Human Rights Watch is aware of at least a dozen additional
incidents in which activists and journalists were targeted and recognizes that
some individuals have chosen not to share their stories
publicly.

In a worrying development, authorities
are now indicating that they perceive human rights
defenders and political activists to be a group that poses a particular threat
to the government and to society and that should be monitored and controlled. For
example, authorities have deemed the
outspoken activist Elena Urlaeva to be "a person of special concern" and thus
subject to "preventive detentions."[99]
According to another prominent activist from Jizzakh:

The authorities
speak openly that there will be no human rights
activity. They say this to us openly. The head of the regional police said this
to me. From the top there is a specific oral order that human rights defenders should not be in contact with international
organizations There is so much pressure
now that human rights organizations
might disappear altogether. A lot of famous human rights
activists are quitting, no one remains. They are leaving [Uzbekistan].[100]

Journalist Tulkin Karaev, from Karshi, similarly reported
that the head of his regional police department told him on June 10 that his
department indicated that there would soon be an order from superiors "to sentence all journalists and human rights defenders to prison
as religious [extremists]."[101]

Arrest and Detention of Human Rights Defenders and Political
Activists in Andijan

Those particularly hard hit by the government crackdown have been civil society activists who
witnessed the events of May 13, who attempted to investigate the killings, and
who publicized information about their
findings. Many also sent appeals to government officials calling for an
investigation into the killings. At least seven activists from Andijan are now
in prison awaiting trial; at least two others have been forced to flee Uzbekistan
as a result of relentless government pressure.

Arrests and threat of arrest

Saidjahon
Zainabitdinov

Uzbek authorities
arrested Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, the chairman of the Andijan human rights group Apelliatsia ("Appeal"), as he crossed
the border from Kyrgyzstan
on May 21.[102] Zainabitdinov
had published bulletins, based on eyewitness reports
by others, about the May 13 demonstration and the massacre and had spoken out
about the events. Previously, he had also closely followed the cases of people
in the region accused of "religious extremism" for their apparent affiliation
with Akramia. Many news reports
following the events quoted Zainabitdinov's description
of the events and of the human rights,
political, and economic context in Uzbekistan.

Zainabitdinov was initially charged under article 139 of the
Criminal Code of Uzbekistan for
slander. He remains in custody and on July 6 was charged additionally with
committing "an act of terrorism that
leads to grave consequences" and "preparation
or distribution of information threatening to public security and the public order."[103]
The Uzbek authorities claim that
Zainabitdinov's bulletins "were intended to cause panic among the population"
and to undermine Uzbekistan's
public image. According to one official, Zainabitditnov was accused of giving
false statements to journalists forty-nine times on May 13.[104]
As of this writing, Zainabitdinov's
family and lawyer have had no news of his whereabouts for more than six weeks,
and have been told only that he is in custody in Tashkent.[105]

Lutfullo Shamsuddinov

Lutfullo Shamsuddinov, the head of the Andijan branch of the
Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, witnessed the massacre on
May 13. On May 16 an Interior Ministry
official passed a message to Shamsuddinov's wife saying that her husband's name
was included in a list of people who
had given information to the media about the Andijan events and were subject to
arrest.[106]

On May 23 and 24, while Shamsuddinov was in Tashkent, men in
civilian clothing claiming to be
from the tax inspectorate searched Shamsuddinov's apartment and confiscated the
hard drives from his computer. An
SNB investigator presented Mrs. Shamsuddinov with a search warrant only after
the search had been underway for several hours. Mrs. Shamsuddinov saw that the
warrant stated that Shamsuddinov had worked closely with Saidjahon
Zainabitdinov.[107]

Out of fear for their safety, on May 26, Lutfullo
Shamsuddinov and his family fled to Kazakhstan. On July 4, Kazakh authorities arrested Shamsuddinov in response to an Uzbek
extradition request. On July 6, the Uzbek prosecutor's office charged
Shamsuddinov, together with his colleague Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, with
committing "an act of terrorism that
leads to grave consequences" and "preparation
or distribution of information threatening to public security and the public order." After urgent
interventions by the UNHCR and several governments Kazakh officials released
Shamsuddinov on July 12. He and his family were subsequently flown to a safe
third country for resettlement.[108]

Seven activists from
Ezgulik, Birlik, and the International
Society for Human Rights Uzbekistan
(ISHR Uzbekistan)

On May 29, authorities
in Andjian arrested Dilmurod Mukhiddinov, chairman of the Markhamat district branch of the human rights
organization Ezgulik ("Goodness");Musajon Bobojanov, chairman of the Markhamat district
branch of the Birlik party; and Mukhammad Otakhonov, of the Uzbek branch of the
International Human Rights Society
(ISHR Uzbekistan). All three men conducted human rights
monitoring in Andijan and had been
gathering information
about the dead and the missing from the May 13 massacre.

Prior to
arresting the men, police searched their homes, seizing human rights materials
and copies of a May 15 Birlik party statement about the Andijan events titled,
"The Killers of the People Will Answer before History."[109]

The Birlik statement regarding the Andijan killings also
figured prominently in the arrest of Nurmukhammad Azizov, chairman of the Shahrihan city branch of the opposition party Birlik and
chairman of the Andijan province branch of the Human Rights Society of
Uzbekistan (HRSU), and the arrest of Akbar Oripov,
chairman of the Andijan city branch of Birlik. Andijan police arrested both men
on May 29 and confiscated copies of the Birlik statement together with human rights publications and computers during searches of the men's homes on June 2.

On June 7, Andijan police detained Hamdam Suleimanov, a
member of the central organizing committee of the opposition party Birlik. Officers
searched his home and seized his computer. Police interrogated Suleimanov about
distribution of the Birlik statement
concerning the Andijan events and then released him on bail. According to the
Russian human rights organization,
"Memorial," police formally arrested
Suleimanov in Kokand
on July 4 after he responded to a summons to appear at the police station.[110]

All six men mentioned above are charged with "public offense
or slander of the President of Uzbekistan," "conspiracy
with the intention of assuming power or overthrowing the constitutional order
of Uzbekistan,"
"organization of mass disorder" and "preparation
or distribution of information threatening to public security and the public order." With the exception of
Otokhonov, who was released on August 18 with charges still pending against
him, all of the men remain in custody in Tashkent
prison. The lawyers representing the men have had difficulty accessing
their clients and have been allowed to meet with them only in the presence of
the prosecutor for the case and other government officials. The lawyers
received no reply to their July 12
complaint to the prosecutor's office regarding the violations of their clients'
right to counsel.[111]

On May 29 police detained Muzaffarmizo Iskhakov, a longtime
human rights defender and head of
the Andijan branch of Ezgulik. Prior
to his detention Iskhakov had received threatening telephone calls on May 17-19
from an unidentified caller who demanded that Iskhakov retract newspaper articles he had written condemning the massacre in Andijan. When
Iskhakov wrote an article that included
information about the threats
against him, the same person called again and said, "It's the end for you."

Iskhakov was detained without a warrant until June 2, when a
senior police investigator took Iskhakov to his apartment and conducted an
official search.[112] Officials
searched the entire apartment and then confiscated Iskhakov's computer, compact
disks with electronic files, computer diskettes, copies of Birlik statements
and documents related to Ezgulik, including
the organization's statutes, information
on conferences, and some of Iskhakov's news articles. The police told Iskhakov
that they were taking the materials
as "physical evidence" and provided Iskhakov with an official document
regarding confiscation.

Following the search, the officials released Iskhakov and
summoned him to appear the following day. When he arrived,
they served him with a warrant and placed him under arrest. On June 6, the
authorities charged him with "public
offense or slander of the President of Uzbekistan," "conspiracy with the intention of assuming power or
overthrowing the constitutional order of Uzbekistan," "organization of mass
disorder" and "preparation or distribution of information
threatening to public security and
the public order."

Because Iskhakov's health began to deteriorate severely while in detention, the authorities released him that evening under the condition
that he not leave the city. Police arrested him again on June 23, only to again
release him seven hours later for medical reasons.

As a result of these detentions and the imminent threat of
arrest on politically-motivated charges, Iskhakov decided to flee Uzbekistan
with his family on June 28, and is now in hiding.[113]

Detentions
and harassment

Gulbakhor Turaeva

Human rights
groups reported that on May 27
Andijan police detained Gulbakhor Turaeva, a member of the nongovernmental
organization Anima-kor, which works to protect the rights
of medical doctors and their patients. Police held Turaeva in the local
prosecutor's office for seventeen hours, denying her food and access to a
lawyer. A prosecutor's office official accused her of spreading lies about the
Andijan killings and of "anti-constitutional activities." Turaeva had spoken
with journalists regarding the number of bodies she saw immediately following the massacre, and was quoted as
saying, "If we speak about [yesterday's] events, I went personally to School
No. 15 in Andijan [yesterday] and I saw the bodies were gathered there. I saw
it with my own eyes. There were about 500 bodies or more."[114]

Isroil Holdorov,
Sadirohun Sufiev and Mukhammadjan Mamatkhanov

On June 26, three human rights
and political activists-Isroil Holdorov of the Erk Democratic Party, Sadirohun
Sufiev, of Ezgulik, and retired human rights
activist Mukhammadjan Mamatkhanov-were meeting with Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty correspondent Gafurjan Yuldashev in the Caravan
teahouse in Andijan's Yangibozor bazaar when eight policemen surrounded the
men, searched them, and placed them in detention. Police officers searched the
men repeatedly and questioned them
for four hours in the Andijan city police department. Holdorov reported that the police confiscated his documents
and computer diskettes with material
related to the trial of the
twenty-three Andijan businessmen accused of "religious extremism," which he had
monitored. A senior officer told Sufiev that he had been "blacklisted" for his
human rights activities. The officer
accused all four men of being responsible for the killings in Andijan, saying,
"You caused all the bloodshed in Andijan! Why did you come back again? You want
to make more bloodshed in Andijan?" All four men were eventually released.[115]

International Helsinki
Federation delegation

On June 15, police stopped a car carrying three international representatives
of the International Helsinki
Federation, Eliza Musaeva, Eldar Zeynalov,
Dmitri Markushevski and Tolib Yakubov, chair of the HRSU, and forced them to
return from Andijan province to Tashkent.
The group had been conducting interviews in Shahirhan, in Andijan province, and
intended to go to Andijan for additional research when police stopped them.[116]

"Isroil I."

An activist from the FerganaValley
who had formally given up human rights
work in 2004, "Isroil I." (not his real name), secretly
traveled to Andijan in June to collect information
on the Andijan killings. A few days after IsroilI. forwarded to a colleague outside of Uzbekistan the testimony, which included information
about the numbers of people killed in Andijan, IsroilI.'s family
began receiving threats. Police threatened IsroilI.'s relatives, some of whom are also
human rights activists, with arrest
and informed his mother that he
should appear in court to face criminal
charges. IsroilI.,
fearing politically-motivated court
action, fled his home and remains in hiding. His family continued to receive
threats.[117]

Beating, detention, and harassment of journalists in Andijan

Immediately
following the massacre in Andijan, the Uzbek authorities
blocked media coverage of the events
by threatening local journalists with arrest, confiscating materials and equipment, and shutting off journalists'
mobile phones.[118] The
authorities also forced almost all
foreign and independent journalists to leave Andijan under threat of repercussions, prevented other journalists from entering the city,[119]
and blocked Internet and foreign television news sources.[120]
The government also denied or delayed accreditation to several journalists.[121] Many
journalists who feared further repercussions
fled Andijan and some fled Uzbekistan
altogether.[122] According
to Gafurjan Yuldashev, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent in
Andijan, no correspondents of foreign news agencies remain in Andijan.[123]

As the cases below demonstrate, in the weeks and months
following the massacre, the authorities
continued to monitor closely the actions of journalists and attempted to
prevent the free flow of information,
including by blocking free entry to
the city and interfering with the work
of journalists. Very few independent journalists managed to enter the city, and
officials harassed and detained those who tried
to enter or managed to work in and near Andijan.

Vladislav Chekoian

Uzbek border guards assaulted Vladislav Chekoian of the
Russian television channel TVTs while he attempted to film on May 21 a
demonstration of about a thousand people on the bridge
in Kara-Su on the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan border near Andijan. The border guards
also seized Chekoian's camera and mobile telephone.[124]

Matluba Azamatova and
Victoria Logunova

BBC correspondent Matluba Azamatova and Agence France-Presse correspondent Victoria Logunova departed Fergana city for Andijan on June 9 by bus. On
the way, a group of police and SNB officials stopped the bus and detained the
correspondents. The police officers refused to identify themselves, questioned
the journalists for two hours, then released them under the condition that they
would not go to Andijan and would return to Fergana. One day earlier, on June 8, authorities in Namangan,
a city near Andijan, prevented the two journalists from conducting interviews
with city residents and forced them to leave the city.[125]

Gafurjan Yuldashev

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Andijan
correspondent Gafurjan Yuldashev reported
being detained and harassed several times in the weeks following the massacre
in Andijan. On May 17, armed men in bullet-proof vests detained Yuldashev and
RFE/RL correspondent Andrei Babitsky outside Yuldashev's apartment and forced
the men to lie face down on the ground for half an hour. While Yuldashev was
covering the May 21 protests in
Kara-Su, near Andijan, eight assailants from the Uzbek security services
dragged him into an alley, kicked him, confiscated his diskettes with recordings
and a digital photo card, and threatened him, saying, "If you want to live,
then get out of Andijan quickly." On May 27, with the assistance of an
acquaintance, Juravoi Abdulaev, Yuldashev visited mass graves in the Bagishmal
district of Andijan. In an RFE/RL
interview with Yuldashev that aired later that day, Abdulaev described the methods of burial
at the site. The following day, unknown attackers stabbed Abdulaev to death,
and security service officials warned Yuldashev not to stay in
Andijan. On May 29, Yuldashev fled Andijan out of fear for his life. Authorities subsequently questioned Yuldashev's relatives
and neighbors about the journalist.[126]

When Yuldashev finally returned to Andijan on June 26,
police immediately detained him
together with three Andijan human rights
defenders and political activists whom he was interviewing (see above). After
police brought Yuldashev to the Andijan city police station, they searched him
four times and took his recording equipment, interrogated him, and accused him
of perpetrating the Andijan events. When Yuldashev described
the interrogation to Human Rights Watch, he noted, "He was blaming us,
journalists and human rights
defenders, for everything that happened in Andijan." Officials released
Yuldashev after four hours and he immediately
fled Andijan again. Following this incident, Yuldashev also reported being followed by security service
officials and receiving requests to visit the Andijan police station again for
questioning in conjunction with "calls made by terrorists
from his home phone."[127]

Crackdown
on Civil Society in Other Regions of Uzbekistan

Incidents directly related to expression about Andijan

In violation of its obligations under international law to allow freedom of assembly,the Uzbek authorities
targeted for harassment human rights
defenders who attempted to hold small demonstrations to protest the Andijan
killings.[128] They
also harassed journalists who had covered the Andijan events.

Suppression
of freedom of assembly

In the days and weeks following the Andijan massacre, human rights defenders and political activists organized
and participated in demonstrations commemorating the loss of life in Andijan
and protesting the government's actions. Uzbek authorities
actively prevented dozens of human rights
activists from participating in these events by holding them under house arrest
or detaining them prior to
demonstrations, and detained and harassed others following demonstrations in
retribution for their participation.[129]

Demonstrations in Tashkent on May 16, 17,
and 19 and their aftermath

According to Elena Urlaeva, an activist with the Society for
Human Rights and Freedoms of the Citizens of Uzbekistan (SHRFCU) and the Ozod
Dekhonlar [Free Peasants] party, on May 16 in separate incidents police detained
SHRFCU members Anatolii Varaksin and Yuri
Konoplev during a memorial service
for the Andijan dead at the Monument to Courage in central Tashkent. Police forced each of the men into
a car and drove them to another part of the city.

On May 17, the authorities
prevented numerous human rights
defenders and political activists from participating in a demonstration outside
the United States Embassy. Police placed Yuri
Konoplev of SHRFCU and Abdujalil Baimatov of HRSU under house arrest for the
day.[130] Ten
plain clothes policemen broke into the office of Ozod Dekhonlar and detained
Elena Urlaeva for several hours.[131]
Authorities similarly
prevented human rights activists
from participating in a protest planned to be held outside the Russian Embassy
in Tashkent on
May 19. Urlaeva listed at least twenty individuals who were subject to house
arrest, beating, detention, or threats in relation to this event.[132] One
human rights activist reported that during
a May 20 demonstration near the OSCE office, police in civilian clothing
harassed demonstrators and destroyed their signs.[133]

Tatiana Dovlatova, an activist with SHRFCU, participated in
the demonstrations, on May 17, 19, and 20 to protest the Uzbek government's
actions in Andijan. On May 26, a police official came to Dovlatova's home in
Jizzakh at 5:00 a.m. and demanded that she go with him to the prosecutor's
office. She refused to go unless provided with an official summons. The
official then placed her under armed house arrest for the day and threatened to
send her to a psychiatric hospital
if she attempted to leave.

On May 27 Dovlatova was detained and taken to the police
station, where officials pressured
her to sign a document that implicated her in serious
violations under seven articles of the criminal
code: "participation as a mercenary," "inciting national, racial, or religious conflict," "attempting to
undermine the constitutional authority,"
"sabotage," "organizing a criminal
society," "preparation or distribution of materials
threatening the public safety and the public order," and "creating, leading, or
participating in religious extremist separatist, fundamentalist, or other
illegal groups;" and under four articles of the administrative code: "violating
the order for organization and conduct of gatherings,
protests, street processions, or demonstrations," "creating the conditions for
conducting illegal gatherings,
protests, street processions, and demonstrations," "violating the legislation
of religious organizations," and "violating the order of teaching religious
dogma."[134] They
also tried to force her to sign
documents stating that she would not participate in further demonstrations, and
then finally released her at 2:00 a.m. The next day, officials again tried to force Dovlatova to sign a document admitting
to the same criminal and administrative
violations, detained her for four hours and told her that she is now
"blacklisted."[135]

Sobitkhon Ustaboev

The Russian human rights
organization "Memorial" reported that on May 18 police arrested Sobitkhon
Ustabaev in Namangan
after he announced a hunger strike and demanded the resignation of Karimov and an international
investigation into the Andijan killings. Ustaboev had a poster and handed out
four hundred leaflets.[136] The
authorities sentenced him to fifteen
days of administrative detention and threatened to open a criminal case against him. Ustaboev later fled to Kazakhstan.[137]

Detention of
Activists in Advance of May 25
Demonstrations in Jizzakh

Authorities in
Jizzakh detained and harassed five prominent human rights
defenders on May 23-25 in advance of
demonstrations they had organized for May 25 to express
concern about the Andijan killings. On May 23, police detained Mamurjan Azimov,
head of the Jizzakh district office
of HRSU, and Uktam Pardaev of ISHR Uzbekistan. Prosecutor's office officials
questioned each of the men about the planned demonstrations and demanded that
they sign statements declaring that
they would cease their human rights
work and no longer participate in any demonstrations or else be subject to criminal charges and arrest.[138]
Police also detained Ziadulla Razakov, the head of the Jizzakh province office
of ISHR Uzbekistan, and Mamarjab Nazarov, head of the Zarbdar district office of Ezgulik and a member of the Birlik
coordinating council, on May 24. Authorities
arrested Bakhtior Khamroev, chairman of the Jizzakh province branch of HRSU, on
May 25.[139] Several
of these activists reported other
harassment and ongoing surveillance (see below).

June 21 commemorative
gatherings

In accordance with Muslim tradition, people sought to
commemorate the fortieth day after the killings in Andijan. In Andijan, the
authorities forbade any large
commemorative gatherings. According
to one human rights activist, "in
Andijan, people were afraid to gather to mark the fortieth day. Local
government officials had prohibited any gatherings,
saying, 'Don't go to events commemorating the fortieth day for people who died
on May 13. They are participants [in the killings], they are "Akramists.'"[140]

In Tashkent,
human rights defenders, political
activists, and others gathered at the Monument to Courage to lay flowers. Some
of them held posters showing support
for Andijan residents and decrying the Andijan massacre. Human Rights Watch
witnessed plain clothes police officers tear up the posters and run away with
one of them. Numerous people were detained near the monument or before they
could reach it. Human Rights Watch saw Aktam Shakhimardanov and Bakhadir
Namazov, both of Ozod Dekhonlar, forced into a car which sped away. Police
detained human rights activist
Anatolii Volkov on the street before he reached the monument and held him in
the police station for several hours.[141]
Three policemen also detained Tashpulat Yuldashev, an independent political
scientist, as he was getting out of his car to attend the event. Police
detained him for three hours together with five human rights
defenders and political activists and one journalist.[142]

Bakhadir Namazov described
the scene at the monument: "All of a sudden a person in civilian clothes came
up to us and started to tear up our signs and ran off. After a little while,
someone else also in civilian clothing tore up a poster and ran off. When we
started to leave the monument about twenty policemen came to us. . . . They
spoke with us very rudely and then checked our passports. They took us to the
district police station and
questioned us."[143]

Shortly after the commemoration ended, police officers also
detained Surat Ikramov, chairman of the Initiative Group of Human Rights Defenders
of Uzbekistan, near his home. The officers did not present any identification
and took Ikramov to the district
police station. Officers questioned Ikramov for six hours before releasing him.
They used offensive language and called Ikramov "a terrorist"
and "an American spy."[144] On the
way to the police station one official also punched him in his stomach. Ikramov
told Human Rights Watch that since his June 21 detention, police and security officials maintain regular surveillance of his
home and his movements and have issued warnings to him against organizing any
demonstrations.[145]

June 27 Demonstration
near the Uzbekistan State Television and Radio Company

Human rights and
political activists planned a demonstration in Tashkent near the Uzbekistan State Television
and Radio Company for June 27 to protest its media
coverage of the Andijan events. Government officials prevented the
demonstration from taking place by holding at least nine potential
demonstrators under house arrest and detaining at least seven others. In one
instance, police detained two members of Ozod Dekhonlar, Bashorat Eshova and
Zulfia Khaidarova, on the evening of June 26 and held them for twenty hours
without food or water. The authorities
then deported Khaidarova from Tashkent
to her residence in Karshi.[146]

In another case, on the morning of June 27, three police
officers broke into the home of human rights
defender and political activist Elena Urlaeva. Urlaeva reported
that one of the police officers immediately
attacked her colleague, Rahmatulla Alibaev, of the Initiative Group of Human
Rights Activists of Uzbekistan, who was helping Urlaeva make placards for the
demonstration. The officer beat Alibaev several times in the head and then took
him into custody. Urlaeva was kept under house arrest. Alibaev's whereabouts
remain unknown.[147]

Arrest, detention, and harassment of journalists

Tulkin Karaev

Tulkin Karaev is a human rights
activist and journalist with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
who covered the events in Andijan. On June 4, police in Karshi arrested Karaev
and sentenced him to ten days of administrative arrest. The police detained
Karaev in a dirty, hot cell with no ventilation and provided him water only
twice a day. The authorities
consistently denied Karaev's lawyer access to his client. The pretext for the
arrest was provided when an unknown woman accosted Karaev at a bus stop and
then claimed that Karaev had threatened her.[148]

One day after his release, on June 15, police again detained
Karaev, held him for several hours of questioning, and then released him
without returning his passport. After interventions from foreign governments
and human rights and media groups, the authorities
returned Karaev's passport on June 23. However, the authorities
pressured Karaev to cease working as
a journalist, saying, "If you continue your journalism work we will sentence
you to prison for three years."[149] Authorities later sought to bring
additional charges against the journalist by attempting to convince another
young woman to make groundless accusations against Karaev, in exchange for an
apartment or a car. In the face of this unrelenting harassment, Karaev fled Uzbekistan
on June 27 and remains in hiding.[150]

Monica Whitlock

Uzbek authorities
pressured BBC Uzbekistan correspondent
Monica Whitlock to depart Uzbekistan
on June 9 in retaliation for her coverage of the events in Andijan. Together
with a film crew, Whitlock covered the peaceful demonstrations in Andijan prior to May 13. The BBC broadcast that footage repeatedly in the days following the massacre. Whitlock
also produced radio broadcasts based
on telephone conversations with people present in the central Andijan square
that included recordings of massive
gunfire and the last prayers of people in the crowd. The weekend following the
massacre, Whitlock returned to Andijan for two days and produced two films
before the authorities escorted
Whitlock and a BBC film crew out of the city. A few weeks later government
officials accused Whitlock of breaking Uzbek laws, without specifying which
laws or what she had allegedly done to break them, and of non-objective reporting. Fearing
for her safety, Whitlock decided to leave Uzbekistan with her family.

Nosir Zokir

Nosir Zokir, a correspondent for Radio Liberty's Uzbek service (Radio Ozodlik) and a former Birlik party
activist, was one of the first journalists to report
from Andijan during the crisis on May 13. On June 17, Namangan police detained Zokir for two hours
and questioned him about an RFE/RL article that contained a poem criticizing President Karimov.
The following week, police interrogated Zokir several times again. Authorities subsequently brought charges against Zokir
for allegedly insulting a security
services officer and on August 26
sentenced him to six months in prison.
A few weeks before his first interrogation, a Namangan newspaper had published a
threatening article about Zokir, claiming
that he had spread disinformation
about the Andijan events.[151]

Erkin Yakubjanov

On July 18, Uzbek border guards detained Erkin Yakubjanov, a
Kyrgyz citizen and a fourth-year journalism student in Osh, Kyrgyzstan,
at the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border post at Dustlik. Yakubjanov sought information for a report
on Andijan for Dolina Mira ("Valley of the World"), a radio
program sponsored by the Danish NGO, International
Media Support. The border guards alleged that Yakubjanov asked them for an
interview and that he was working without accreditation by the Uzbek Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. The guards further tried
to justify Yakubjanov's detention by claiming
to have suspected that he works for RFE/RL. The border guards released
Yakubjanov on July 29.[152]

Other incidents illustrating the broader crackdown on civil society

The heightened
level of repression following May
13, 2005 has extended beyond those who spoke out about the Andijan events to
include human rights
defenders with a strong record for exposing corruption and challenging
government authority, outspoken
journalists, particularly those who work as stringers
for foreign news agencies, and political activists. While the cases of
harassment documented below do not derive
directly from the Andijan events themselves they illustrate the government's
unprecedented crackdown on Uzbekistan's
civil society.

Beatings
of human rights defenders, political activists and
journalists

Sotvoldi Abdullaev

On May 30 in Tashkent,
two men in civilian clothing, one a local police officer, hit Sotvoldi
Abdullaev on the back of the head. The assailants had been monitoring the house from a parked car for several days,
apparently to prevent Abdullaev, a member of ISHR Uzbekistan, from leaving his
house. Abdullaev noticed that surveillance of his home started on May 17, after
he participated in a demonstration near the U.S. embassy, and in demonstrations
near the Russian embassy and OSCE office. Abdullaev recognized one of the men
as the same police officer who had been monitoring
his house, and so told the men, "Well, since you've come this time, why don't
you come in." As Abdullaev turned to enter his house, one of the men struck
him.[153]

As a result of the attack, Abdullaev suffered a severe
concussion and was hospitalized for three days. However, according to the
official medical release document, Abdullaev, "accidentally fell to the ground,
hit his head, and lost consciousness." Abdullaev continues to suffer from
dizziness, nausea, and vision problems as a result of the beating.[154]

Ulugbek Khaidarov

On June 24, two unidentified men in uniform attacked Ulgubek
Khaidarov, an independent journalist from Jizzakh. Khaidarov was in Karshi, on
his way to visit the journalist and human rights activist Tulkin Karaev, when
the men hit Khaidarov over the head with a heavy object and then continued to
punch and kick him when he fell to the ground. They shouted at him, "Get back
to your Jizzakh!" A few days later, Human Rights Watch documented evidence of
Khaidarov's beating: a large lump on his head, severe swelling in his face, one
eye swollen shut, and bruises on his body. A doctor confirmed that Khaidarov
had suffered a concussion.[155]

Lobar Kainarova

Two women and one man attacked Lobar Kainarova, a
correspondent for RFE/RL's Tashkent
bureau, on July 1 in the entrance to her apartment building as she returned
home from reporting on a trial. The assailants forced Kainarova, who was three
months pregnant, into a van and
drove her around while beating her in the face and abdomen for more than two
hours. The assailants confiscated her tape recorder and interview materials. During
the previous week, Kainarova had interviewed human rights
defenders in Syrdaria and Jizzakh
provinces who described the pressure they faced from authorities
in conjunction with their work. Kainarova reported
that a few days earlier a secret service agent had warned her not to report on the trial
or interview human rights activists.
The journalist also had received several threatening phone calls, in which an
unidentified caller warned her to "not stick [her] nose into politics."[156]

Rajabboi Raupov

On July 6, in Shafirkan, in Bukhara province, two unidentified assailants
beat freelance journalist Rajabboi Raupov with an iron bar.[157]Raupov, who works for a number of media outlets including
RFE/RL, suffered severe head wounds from the attack and was in critical condition. Raupov had started a newspaper, Zerkalo Shafirkana, a few months earlier
that was shut down for criticizing
the mayor and prosecutor of the district.[158]

Rano Azimova

On July 16 at 6:00
a.m., three unknown assailants beat Abdujalil Azimov, the son of
human rights defender Rano Azimova. For
a month prior to this incident,
unknown persons had knocked on Azimova's door late at night and issued threats
related to her human rights work and
her participation in demonstrations. During
that month Azimova also had received numerous hostile telephone calls
threatening physical retaliation against members of her family.[159]

Gavkhar Yuldasheva

On August 2, at 11 p.m., two men attacked Gavkhar
Yuldasheva, head of the Gallaorol district
branch of Ezgulik in Jizzakh province, as she went out to get bread. On August
1, Yuldasheva had participated in a meeting in Jizzakh with British
Ambassador David Moran. The older one of them, whom Yuldasheva recognized as
having visited her apartment in December 2004 allegedly collecting data for the
census, kicked her and pounded her head against the asphalt. She nearly lost
consciousness. A few days later she was summoned to the police station, where a
senior police official told Yuldasheva, "Remember this: This is a warning, next
time we'll kill you." Yuldasheva reported
that prior to the incident, on July 7, 2005, police had
detained her and warned her to stop her human rights
work.[160] Following
the attack, police repeatedly pressured Yuldasheva's husband to admit to having
beaten his wife over a domestic conflict. Authorities
succeeded in extracting a forced
confession from him on August 26, after threatening him with "serious repercussions."[161]

Mass detention of activists in advance of May 30 demonstrations in Tashkent

Opposition party activists and human rights
defenders planned to hold a demonstration at the Ministry of Justice on May 30
to protest the government's refusal to register the opposition party Birlik. Authorities used arbitrary detentions to prevent many
participants from taking part in the protest or even reaching the planned site
of the demonstration.Vasila Inoiatova, chair of Ezgulik, reported that police detained many Ezgulik and
Birlik activists in advance of the
demonstrations and put others under house arrest in Tashkent and in other cities.[162] Elena Urlaeva
reported that police held her and at
least six other human rights
activists under house arrest from May 30 to June 4.[163]The Initiative Group of Human Rights
Defenders of Uzbekistan also reported
the house arrest and detention of several activists, including
Surat Ikramov, and sent a letter to the OSCE deploring
the detentions and requesting help.[164]

On May 28, Samarkand police
arrested Kholiqnazar Ganiev, head of the Samarkand
province office of the human rights
organization Ezgulik and the opposition party Birlik. Ganiev had planned to
travel to Tashkent
for protests on May 30. Police charged Ganiev with "hooliganism" and sentenced
him to fifteen days of administrative detention. A group of women, apparently
government provocateurs, attacked Ganiev's house on May 27 and then brought
charges against him when he asked them to leave.

On the evening of May 29, unidentified people attempted to
start fights with twelve members of Ezgulik from the FerganaValley who had come to Tashkent to participate in
an Ezgulik seminar on May 29 and in the protest at the Ministry of Justice
scheduled for May 30. In response to the provocation, Inoiatova moved the
Ezgulik members from their hotel to her brother's home for the night. Soon
thereafter, thirty armed special services
officers forcibly entered Inoiatova's brother's home and detained the twelve
human rights defenders, beating
several of them. Police also detained Vasila Inoiatova, together with her
family, at 2:00 a.m. and held them until noon the next day.[165]

Also on May 29, one prominent political activist from a
small town, "Jurabek J." (not his real name), planned to travel to Tashkent with a colleague
to participate in the May 30 demonstration. Thirty policemen stopped the two
men just as they were getting in a car to drive
to Tashkent. Without
any explanation, the police held the men until nearly 11:00 the next morning
and beat Jurabek J. also reported
constant security service surveillance of his home and his movements
since May 15. Prostitutes, acting as government provocateurs, repeatedly harassed Jurabek J. near his home. One
senior police officer told him, "We don't want to ever leave you without
observation."Another police officer, an
acquaintance, warned Jurabek J. that dozens of people had given written testimony against him and that the authorities planned to bring
charges against him that carry a minimum five-year sentence. Following the
threats and harassments, Jurabek J. fled his hometown, and he remains in
hiding.[166]

On July 7, police held Nigora Khidoiatova, head of the Ozod
Dekhonlar party, under house arrest for several hours. The police released
Khidoiatova only after the intervention of an official from the United States
Embassy.[167]

Detention and harassment of demonstrators near Samarkand

Several hundred people protested at the Bobur collective
farm near Samarkand
in the days following the June 4 arrest of Norboi Kholjigitov, a member of HRSU
and an activist defending farmer's rights.[168] On the
nearby roads, police detained people trying to reach the demonstrations, placed
them in cars, and drove them away. They also demanded written
statements from non-local drivers
vowing that they would not enter Samarkand.[169]

Two extraordinary cases of detention and harassment

Muidinjon Kurbanov

Muidinjon Kurbanov is head of the Buston (Jizzakh province)
office of HRSU and a representative
of the Birlik regional board and has for several years endured government
harassment and even imprisonment.[170] On May
30, Kurbanov arrived at the Ministry
of Justice to participate in the planned demonstration. Four men in civilian
clothes detained Kurbanov and confiscated his passport and mobile telephone.
Officers took him to the district
police station where they questioned him for six hours and demanded that he
sign a document saying that he had illegally participated in a demonstration.
As Kurbanov told Human Rights Watch, "They threatened me, saying, if I don't
leave Buston for good something might happen to my children or my wife."[171] Police
eventually released Kurbanov, but detained him again later that same day, while
he was in an internet caf reading his email.

Kurbanov reported
that he was detained yet again on June 1 and then on June 13 and that the authorities kept him under constant surveillance and
virtual house arrest throughout June and July. On August 1-following a meeting
in Jizzakh with the British
ambassador-police again detained Kurbanov, and a senior police official
threatened him, telling him to cut his ties with foreigners and to leave Buston
within fifteen days. He also threatened Kurbanov's life, saying, "I can beat
you or kill you and nobody will question me. What should I do with you? Tear
you up into pieces or beat you to death? You choose!"[172]
On August 3, one day before a meeting in Jizzakh that Kurbanov had scheduled
with United States
ambassador Jon Purnell, police detained Kurbanov again. A senior police
official accused Kurbanov of harassing his neighbors, and asked him about his
planned meetings for August 4. Fearing
arrest and mistreatment, Kurbanov fled Jizzakh on August 5 and remains in
hiding.[173] The
authorities are actively looking for
him and have questioned his relatives and neighbors about his whereabouts.[174]

Elena Urlaeva

Government officials have put constant pressure on outspoken human rights
defender and political activist, Elena Urlaeva, a member of SHRFCU and Ozod
Dekhonlar. Urlaeva describes one of
the incidents in a complaint she wrote to the prosecutor general on June 29. On
June 28 she demonstrated in front of the Uzbek prosecutor general's office and
later at the Tashkent
city hokimiat and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. She held placards and an orange flag
and handed out Ozod Dekhonlar party leaflets. According to her statement, at
approximately 2:30 p.m.,
two government officials forced her into a car and began to hit her, punching
her in the legs and in the head.

The men drove Urlaeva to the Mirobod district police station where duty officers placed her
in a detention cell. At 4:00 p.m. the same day Urlaeva appeared before a judge,
who refused her requests for a lawyer or an interpreter to translate the
proceedings from Uzbek to Russian. Urlaeva did not have access to the case material filed against her. The judge fined her six
times the minimum salary for disseminating information
and disobeying the authorities.[175]

In another incident, on July 13, police broke into Urlaeva's
apartment, threatened her with a gun, and kept her under house arrest until a
United States Embassy official arrived
on the scene. In response to a complaint sent to the district
prosecutor's office, Urlaeva received a letter stating that "given the
situation in the country at that time, [the Department of Internal Affairs] was checking all persons of a
special category and the detention was a necessary preventive measure."[176] These incidents
followed a pattern of official harassment of Urlaeva since the events in
Andijan, including threatening phone
calls and many weeks of house arrest.[177]
On August 27, police detained Elena Urlaeva and charged her with "desecrating
state symbols" for allegedly distributing
political pamphlets with caricatures
of the Uzbek coat of arms. Procuracy
officials ordered Urlaeva to be held in a psychiatric
hospital, where she will undergo a medical evaluation to determine whether she
is fit to stand trial.[178] Uzbek
authorities have subjected Urlaeva
to forced psychiatric detention repeatedly in the past.[179]

Vilification of human rights
defenders, political activists, and journalists through public denunciations
and the media

The government has undertaken a campaign to publicly
discredit and intimidate human rights defenders and journalists and, in some cases,
has launched public denunciations or "hate rallies" against them. The hate
rallies occurred chiefly in Jizzakh, which has a recent history of farmer
unrest and an active community of human rights
defenders who expose corruption in the government-dominated agricultural sector.[180]
Uzbek authorities have used public
denunciation and the mass media to
spread false information about human
rights defenders and journalists and
to humiliate them publicly.[181] Much of
this invective alleges that these individuals are spies for foreign powers and
enemies of the state, and some authorities
have even gone so far as to accuse human rights
defenders falsely of religious extremism, terrorism,
or participation in the Andijan killings.

Public denunciations and hate rallies

Bakhtior KhamroevOn May 26, seventy people, including
representatives of the local
administration, police, and media,
forcibly entered the Jizzakh home of Bakhtior Khamroev, chairman of the Jizzakh
province branch of HRSU. The group was one of two organized that day at the
local mahalla committee in order to take action against human rights defenders in the area. The crowd conducted a
Soviet-style hate rally against Khamroev right
in his home and threatened to drag him into the street for a public
denunciation. They accused him of being a traitor for passing information to Western organizations, including media
and human rights groups, and of
being a "Wahabbist" and a "terrorist."Khamroev reported
receiving blows to the chest, head, and his one remaining kidney. The authorities also pressured
Khamroev to leave Jizzakh and made threats against his life and his family. A
smaller group of people returned to Khamroev's house on May 27, when Human
Rights Watch representatives were
visiting him. They again threatened Khamroev and demanded that he leave Jizzakh.
Khamroev's complaint to the prosecutor's office regarding the hate rally in his
home has gone unanswered.

Since this incident, the police have maintained surveillance
of Khamroev and keep him "virtually under house arrest." Twice, when Khamroev
attempted to travel to Tashkent,
police stopped him and forcibly returned him to his home.[182]

Uktam Pardaev

The same group of seventy people who attempted to evict Khamroev on May 26 then proceeded to the home
of twenty-five-year-old Uktam Pardaev, a human rights
activist with ISHR Uzbekistan. They organized a hate rally against Pardaev,
hitting him in the stomach, shouting at him, and calling him a "Wahabbist" and
"a terrorist" and threatening to
"teach him a lesson." As they departed they told Pardaev that he should ask for
forgiveness and "get on the right track," meaning stop his human rights
work, or they would soon throw him out of Jizzakh. When neighbors asked why the
attackers had targeted Pardaev, participants answered, "Because he has
connections to terrorists and meets
with questionable people every day."[183]

Pardaev also told Human Rights Watch that on June 5 an
unknown man approached him and told him, "We have an order from above: if human
rights activists will continue their
activities, then we will eliminate
all of you." That same day police came to Pardaev's house and asked Pardaev's neighbors
about him. Police told neighbors that Pardaev is "an enemy of the people,
traitor and a terrorist" and forced
them to write complaints against him.
In addition to these incidents, Pardaev has received many threatening telephone
calls and letters.[184]

Mamarjab Nazarov

Also on May 26, a second group of approximately seventy
people, including local government
officials, went to the apartment of Mamurjan Azimov of HRSU apparently to
conduct a similar hate rally.[185] When
they did not find Azimov at home, the group traveled in three buses and five or
six cars to the home of Mamarjab Nazarov in Buston, a village outside of
Jizzakh, where they were joined by approximately forty local officials and
other participants.[186] Nazarov
is the head of the Zarbdar district
office of Ezgulik and a member of the coordinating council of Birlik. Earlier
in the day, police had prevented Nazarov from leaving his apartment and had
disconnected his telephone. Nazarov convinced the leader of the group to take
him to a local government building rather than conduct the denunciation in his
home. Once in the government building, some of the participants accused Nazarov
of planning to organize a crisis
like Andijan in their town and of distributing
false information about Andijan, and
then took a decision to kick Nazarov and his family out of Buston.[187]

On the basis of this decision, on the night of May 31, the
owner of Nazarov's apartment evicted
Nazarov and his family and drove them to Samarkand
province, 150 kilometers away from Samarkand.
Officials from the village where Nazarov and his family decided to stay immediately visited Nazarov and ordered him to appear
at the local police station on June 2. During
the meeting, a senior official told Nazarov that the authorities in Jizzakh had told him, "A 'Wahabbist'"
[Nazarov] is moving to your region; this is a dangerous person." The official
also instructed Nazarov not to organize any demonstrations or publish any information on the internet. Following a meeting
with British
Ambassador David Moran on August 1, Samarkand
officials held Nazarov under house arrest forcing him to spend twenty days
incommunicado.[188]

June 2 rally in
Jizzakh

On June 2, local government officials organized a rally in
Jizzakh in support of president Karimov
under the slogan "The Uzbek people will never be dependent on anyone!"[189]Placards held at the rally stated, "Away with
traitors!" "Rally around the President!" and "Human rights
activists, get out of Uzbekistan!"[190] An
official at the rally reportedly
identified all local human rights
activists as traitors and enemies of the people, who are servants of the Americans
and the British
and receive foreign money. The official specifically named Bakhtior Khamroev,
Uktam Pardaev, Mamurjan Azimov, Mamarjab Nazarov, and Jamshid Mukharov. The
officials hosting the meeting claimed that twenty-two thousand people were
participating in the meeting but human rights
activists reported that there were
not more than three thousand and five hundred participants.[191]

Karshi public
denunciation

The pro-government organization "Center for Support of the
President's Ideas" organized a rally at the Karshi stadium on June 7 in support of President Karimov
and the government. During the
rally, in which local government officials participated, the head of the
organization accused Tulkin Karaev, a journalist with IWPR, Khamrokul Karimev, a journalist with Radio Ozodlik, and Yadgar
Turlibekov, the head of the Karshi section of HRSU of being enemies of the
people and traitors. According to witnesses and those who saw the rally on
television, approximately 10-15,000 people attended the rally, most of them
young people.[192]

Namangan public denunciation

According to Ezgulik, on July 5 in the Pop district of Namangan province, government representatives met with representatives
of the local population. Although the meeting had been organized to discuss agricultural production, an official stated that the
events in Andijan and the shooting of citizens had been organized by Western
organizations together with Uzbek human rights
defenders, many of whom had fled abroad. Ezgulik also reported
that two Namangan
officials approached the head of the Pop district
office of Ezgulik, Arabboi Kadyrov, near the courthouse and said that an order
had been given to imprison human rights defenders.[193]

In the media

Common targets in the media
smear campaign are human rights
defenders and Uzbek journalists who work for foreign media
outlets such as the BBC, Radio Ozodlik and IWPR. Common themes in the
government propaganda are that these individuals are on the payroll of foreign
masters to spread false or grossly exaggerated information
about May 13 in order to discredit the government. Some stories went further, accusing human rights defenders and journalists of being spies,
abettors of terrorism, or ringleaders in the May 13 violence. The consistency
of the tone, targets, and outrageous allegations in the stories, viewed in the context of the utter lack of media freedoms in Uzbekistan, leaves little doubt
about the government's involvement in the smear campaign. These derogatory media pieces are part of the government's broader
efforts, described above, to use its
unchallenged control over the media
to ensure that only its version of the Andijan events reaches the public.

The national newspaper Pravda
Vostoka ("Eastern Truth") maintains a strongly pro-government line and has
published numerous articles aimed at discrediting human rights
activists and journalists. On May 25 the newspaper published an article titled,
"In Defense of the Sovereignty of the Uzbek People," that attacks
correspondents of the Fergana.ru news service, IWPR, BBC Radio, and Radio
Ozodlik. The article accused IWPR journalists of being provocateurs and of
organizing an information campaign
against the government. The article also attacked Alexsey Volosevich, a correspondent for Fergana.ru and the only
journalist to remain in Andijan to report
on the situation there after May 13, calling him "a professional provocateur."[194]

Ozod Ovoz, a media
freedoms website, reported that on
May 25, pro-presidential Tashkent newspaper Mahalla accused Radio Ozodlik of
spreading false information about
the Andijan events and criticized
each Radio Ozodlik journalist individually. The author called the journalists
illiterate, cowardly, soulless, and said they were intent on doing evil.[195]Mahalla attacked Radio Ozodlik in a July
27 article as well, accusing the station's journalists of being incompetent and
slanderous.[196]

An article titled "'Free' Fabrication-Their
Credo" appeared in the Tashkent
newspaper Zerkalo XXI ["Mirror XXI"]
on June 9. It criticized Radio
Ozdolik's coverage of the Andijan events and denounced by name numerous RFE/RL
journalists in Prague and Uzbekistan. It attempted to
discredit RFE/RL Uzbek Service Director
Adolat Najimova and accused one journalist of having been trained in terrorist acts.[197]

On June 1, the Tashkent
newspaper Khurriat
published an article criticizing
several journalists from the IWPR, including
Tulkin Karaev. The article claims that the IWPR journalists had been spreading
false information about the Andijan
killings in order to be sensationalist and to receive money.[198]

Mahalla published
an article on June 8, titled, "Dead Souls of IWPR Beg for Life," that accuses
Ozod Ovoz of spreading false information
about the killings in Andijan based on reports
provided by IWPR journalist Galima Bukharbaeva
and claimed that IWPR is an illegal organization. The same day, the newspaper Turkiston also criticized
Bukharbaeva as well as Nosir Zokir of Radio Ozodlik and his son.[199]

A June 16 article in Pravda
Vostoka accused Muidinjon Kurbanov of participation in Akramia and of
direct involvement in the Andijan killings of May 13. The author also
implicated Vasila Inoiatova in the killings because of her contact with Kurbanov by telephone. In addition, the
author claims that the "support of
so-called political opposition, namely Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, played a final
role in activating the activities of the Akramists [on May 13 in Andijan]."[200]

HRSU reported
that on June 23 Uzbek central television showed a program criticizing Norboi Kholjigitov of HRSU and the Ozod
Dekhonlar party.[201] The
program showed "representatives of
the public" calling human rights
defenders "enemies of the people."[202]

On July 7, Pravda
Vostoka accused Lutfullo Shamsuddinov, head of the Andijan Branch of the
Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, of providing "information about the events in Andijan and for distribution of false information
from the site of the incident" to unidentified "customers."[203]

According to Ozod Ovoz, in an article titled, "If You Spit
into the Sky," the editor-in-chief
of Mahalla, Chori
Latipov, accused BBC correspondent Matluba Azamatova of spreading false information about Andijan after she visited the
homes and graves of "terrorists,"
and likened her to a prostitute. The editor
also repeated several times that
Azamatova "works under orders and receives large amounts of money for
fulfilling those orders." Latipov issued Azamatova a veiled threat, "If you
spit into the sky [at Karimov and
the government], spit will fall right
back down on your head."[204] Latipov
similarly struck out at Radio Ozodlik
and Ozod Ovoz in a July 27 article titled, "An Empty Mind's Pretensions to
Wisdom."[205]

The
Foreign Policy Context

Uzbekistan Gathers Allies

As the international community began to take stock of the
events in Andijan, interpretations of what had happened split neatly along Cold
War lines. The United States,
the European Union, the OSCE, as well as the United Nations, began pressing for an independent international
investigation of the violence. Russia
and China,
on the other hand, unequivocally backed the Uzbek government's actions as a
legitimate response to what these states characterized as an attack by extremists.

Soon after the
massacre, President Karimov flew to Beijing where, after being honored with a twenty-one gun
salute at Tiananmen Square (site of the 1989
massacre by the Chinese government of peaceful protesters) he signed a $600
million oil deal with Chinese president
Hu Jintao. Hu told Karimov he
"honor[ed]" Uzbekistan's
"efforts to protect its national independence, sovereignty and territorial
integrity."[206]Russia also supported
Karimov against mounting pressure for an investigation. Russian officials and
mediarepeatedly
stressed that there was no need for an international
investigation. On June 10, a group of Russian experts including
journalists and political scientists met with Karimov
after visiting Andijan. The Uzbek state news service
trumpeted their findings that the Uzbek government account of the violence was
correct and that Western media were
biased.[207] In a broadcast on Ekho Moskvy radio, one of the observers
claimed there was "no evidence whatsoever" that there had been shooting in Bobur Square.[208]

In late June, Karimov made a visit to Moscow,
where he met with Russian president
Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov. At their joint press conference, Putin claimed that Russian
intelligence knew of infiltration from Afghanistan
to Andijan, which appeared to embolden Karimov
to suggest that the U.S.
was cooperating with terrorists to
overthrow his government.[209] Ivanov
was quoted as saying, "you have to close your eyes and ignore all the facts" to
believe that there was a peaceful demonstration in Andijan.[210]

Russian and Chinese
support for the Uzbek government
coalesced at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana, Kazakhstan,
on July 5-6. The heads of the member states, which include
the Central Asian republics as well
as Russia and China,
signed seven agreements, all of them aimed at the fight against "terrorism, separatism, and extremism." The theme of the
summit framed the events in Andijan as part of a wider threat of
destabilization, rather than as an excessive government response to a largely
peaceful demonstration. Some of the resolutions even appeared directly to target
Uzbek refugees in Kyrgyzstan,
including an accord not to extend
asylum to persons classified as terrorists
or extremists by SCO member states.[211]Russia,
China,
and the SCO echoed the core assertions of the Uzbek government, namely that
there was no peaceful demonstration, that the violence was perpetrated by
foreign Muslim extremists, and that the bloodshed was an internal matter. The emphasis of SCO statements was on
"stability," with a clear eye to the recent political turmoil in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia,
and Ukraine.

The summit's
statement also hinted broadly at support
for the withdrawal of U.S.
and European forces from Central Asian military
bases, which had been used since 2002 to support
military operations in Afghanistan.[212]

No Strategy
for an International Investigation

As noted above, the
United States and
governments of the European Union (E.U.) and its candidate states played an active
role in supporting the evacuation of
Uzbek refugees from Kyrgyzstan
and thus protecting them from being returned to persecution and possible
torture in Uzbekistan.
They have also greatly supported the
community of human rights defenders
in Uzbekistan
during this most recent crackdown.

These states'
efforts in support of an international investigation into the killings in
Andijan have been far weaker, however. In fact, in the face of utter defiance
by the Uzbek government, both the U.S. and the European Union appear
to have backed off entirely rather than implement a more robust strategy to
hold the Uzbek government accountable for the loss of life.

A conclusion
adopted by E.U. foreign ministers on June 13 deplored the Uzbek government's
failure to allow an international
investigation and threatened a partial suspension of the E.U.'s Partnership and
Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with the Uzbek government if it did not meet an
"end of June" deadline to reconsider its position. A month later, as the Uzbek
government continued to defy calls for an international
investigation and to crack down
severely on civil society, a July 18 meeting of E.U. foreign ministers failed
to act on the E.U.'s earlier threat. Instead, it called for the E.U.'s Special
Representative for Central Asia to travel to
the region "as soon as possible" to "review the matter."[213]

On July 30, the
Uzbek government notified the U.S. Embassy that the United States had 180 days
to withdraw its forces from a military
base in southern Uzbekistan that the U.S. and others had used since 2002 to support operations in Afghanistan. This marked a
radical shift in the relationship between the two countries.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United
States, the U.S.
considered Uzbekistan
an important ally in its global campaign against terrorism,
and provided aid and training to the Uzbek military
as well as counterterrorism
assistance.[214]

The U.S. ignored
earlier calls by Human Rights Watch and others to disengage from the base in
the wake of Uzbek government intransigence and repression
following the May 13 massacre, losing an opportunity to take a principled stance and to distance its own military operations from the abuses committed by Uzbek
forces, and to use the political leverage provided by the base to press for an international
investigation. As of this writing,
the Bush administration has made no moves to back up its rhetorical calls for an international
investigation by enacting any diplomatic or economic sanctions against the
Uzbek government.

Recommendations

To the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan:

Immediately grant access to Andijan to an
independent, credible, international
investigative team operating under the terms of reference set out by the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Allow such a team unfettered
access to people and places relevant
to investigation of the events of May 13, 2005.

Grant access to Uzbekistan
to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary
Executions, the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Human
Rights Defenders, and the Working Groups on Arbitrary Detention and
Disappearances.

Grant the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and diplomatic missions based in Tashkent
access to the four men-Dilshod Khajiev, Tavakal Khajiev, Hasan Shakirov,
and Mukhammad Kadirov-forcibly returned to Uzbekistan by the government of
Kyrgyzstan, where the men had sought asylum.

Guarantee due process rights to those arrested since May 13, including the right
of those in custody to meet with the counsel of their choice in private.

Guarantee international monitors access to trials of human rights
defenders, journalists and political activists and to trials of those accused of involvement in the
Andijan violence.

Investigate and
prosecute allegations regarding the use of torture by Uzbek law enforcement
agents during the course of
detentions and interrogations of people in Andijan following the May 13
massacre.

To
the Government of the Russian
Federation:

Publicly acknowledge
the need for an independent, international
investigation that includes in
its mandate examining human rights
abuses committed by government forces in Andijan.

To
the Government of Kyrgyzstan:

Comply with the 1951
Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol and the Convention Against
Torture. Specifically, protect and guarantee the rights
of refugees from Uzbekistan
who have fled to Kyrgyzstan
seeking safety. Do not forcibly send back to Uzbekistan people who would
face torture or persecution if returned.

To
the Government of the United
States:

Recognizing that in the
absence of an independent investigation, it has not been possible to
determine which Uzbek units took part in the Andijan massacre and
cover-up, freeze any remaining military
and counter-terrorism
assistance to all units of the Uzbek armed forces, National Security Services,
and Ministry of Internal
Affairs, pursuant to the Leahy amendment which stipulates that U.S.
government aid shall not be provided to units that have participated in
gross human rights abuses.

Institute a ban on
visas to the U.S. for
senior members of the government of Uzbekistan who exercise
command and control of the armed forces that committed the massacre in
Andijan. In addition, freeze U.S.-based assets belonging to the
above-named senior government officials.

Continue and expand U.S.
government support for civil
society, including support of human rights
defenders and creation and promotion of alternatives
to state-run media.

Insist that the
government of Uzbekistan
conform to its commitments under the U.S.-Uzbekistan Declaration on Strategic
Partnership, signed in March 2002, which include
commitments to "intensify the democratic transformation of society . . .
taking into account obligations deriving
from international treaties."
In addition, withhold payments to the government of Uzbekistan for any military base-related services
until the government of Uzbekistan
abides by its obligations under the bilateral partnership agreement.

To
the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE):

Send a team of trained
observers to monitor and report on the conduct of trials of those accused by the government of Uzbekistan
of responsibility for the violence in Andijan, including
those charged with "terrorism"
and "Islamic extremism."

Strongly and publicly
condemn the government of Uzbekistan
illegal detention, arrest and harassment of Uzbek human rights defenders, journalists and political
activists.

As recommended by the
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE,
strengthen the capacity of OSCE field missions in Uzbekistan to better monitor
the human rights situation
there.

To
the European Union (E.U.):

Given the government of
Uzbekistan's refusal to
fulfill the E.U. General Affairs and External
Relations Council's (GAERC) call for an independent, international inquiry into the massacre in
Andijan, and the Uzbek government's persistent non-compliance with the
terms of the agreement, immediately
suspend the E.U.'s Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Uzbekistan.

Immediately enact an embargo on arms sales from
E.U. member states to Uzbekistan.

Immediately enact a ban on issuance of visas to
senior members of the Uzbek government who exercise command and control of
the armed forces that committed the massacre in Andijan.

To
the United Nations (U.N.):

The Secretary General
should appoint a Special Envoy on Uzbekistan to signal that the
political and human rights
situation in the country remains a serious
concern at the highest level of the United Nations. The Special Envoy
should be tasked with monitoring
the evolving political and human rights
situation in Uzbekistan,
recommending and coordinating appropriate
follow-up action on Uzbekistan
by U.N. agencies, as well as intergovernmental bodies such as the
Commission on Human Rights, and raising serious
security and human rights concerns with the Uzbek government.

The Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights and its special mechanisms should continue
to closely monitor the human rights
situation in Uzbekistan
and undertake action on specific cases as appropriate.

The U.N. country team
should provide support to civil
society organizations seeking to monitor the human rights
situation.

To
all States:

As recommended by the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, issue a stay of deportation to
Uzbekistan of Uzbek asylum seekers and eyewitnesses to the Andijan
massacre who would face the risk
of torture if returned.

Acknowledgments

This
report was researched and written by a team of Human Rights Watch researchers
and consultants. It was edited by Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe
and Central Asia division, and Iain Levine, program director of Human Rights Watch.
Dinah PoKempner, general counsel for
Human Rights Watch, also reviewed the report.
Acacia Shields, senior researcher for
the Europe and Central Asia division, also edited the report, and Veronika
Leila Szente Goldston, advocacy director for the Europe and Central
Asia division, contributed to the recommendations. Valuable
technical support was provided by Inara Gulpe-Laganovska and Anna Sinelnikova,
associates from the Europe and Central Asia division in New York. Eugene A. Sokoloff and another
intern in the Europe and Central Asia division
provided additional assistance.

Human
Rights Watch extends its gratitude to all those who have shared their stories with us for this report.
We particularly want to recognize the courageous and important work of Uzbekistan's
human rights defenders, independent
journalists, and political activists, who have risked
much to tell the truth about what happened in Andijan on May 13, 2005 and in
its aftermath.

Human
Rights Watch is profoundly grateful to the Open Society Institute for its
generous support of our work in Central Asia.

[1]
Not all cases of arrest, abandonment of human rights
activities, or departure from Uzbekistan
are included in this report.

[2]
Resolution of the Legislative Body of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of
Uzbekistan, "On the Formation of an Independent Commission of the Oliy Majlis
of the Republic of Uzbekistan to Investigate the Events Having Taken Place in
the Town of Andijan," released by the National Information Agency of
Uzbekistan, May 23, 2005 [online], http://www.uza.uz/documents/?id1=3793
(retrieved August 9, 2005). The
commission was charged with the following tasks: "To thoroughly investigate all
the circumstances of the Andijan events and to deeply and comprehensively
analyze the course of their development. To determine causes and conditions
that triggered the 13 May tragic
events. To pay special attention to establishing a cause-and-effect
relationship in these events and those forces behind these criminal acts that caused casualties. To thoroughly
analyze actions by the government and law-enforcement officers and provide a
legal assessment of their actions. To involve highly skilled experts in
analyzing the actions." Pravda Vostoka newspaper, in Russian, May
24, 2005, English translation in BBC MonitoringGlobal Newsline Central Asia Political
File,May 24, 2005.

[3]
There are diverging opinions on the nature of "Akramia" inspired by former
Andijan mathematics teacher Akram Yuldashev. His pamphlet, Yimonga Yul ("Path to Faith"), was a controversial examination of
Muslim spiritual values. While
independent writers have characterized
the work as politically innocuous, an Uzbek court found that his works
advocated the overthrow of the Uzbek government. Authorities
also link Yuldashev to Hizb-ut-Tahrir,
an organization that he reportedly
joined and left in the 1980s.

[4]
Human Rights Watch, "Bullets Were Falling Like Rain: The Andijan Massacre, May
13, 2005," A Human Rights Watch Report,
Vol. 17, No. 5 (D), June 2005; and U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Report of the Mission to
Kyrgyzstan by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Concerning the Killings in Andijan, Uzbekistan, of 13-14 May 2005, July 12,
2005 [online], http://www.ohchr.org/english/press/docs/andijan12072005.pdf
(retrieved August 9, 2005); and
Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, Preliminary Findings on the Events in Andijan,
Uzbeksitan, 13 May 2005, released by the Office for Democratic Institutions
and Human Rights, June 20, 2005 [online], http://www1.osce.org/documents/odihr/2005/06/15233_en.pdf
(retrieved August 9, 2005).

[5] The
mahalla is a centuries-old
autonomous institution originally
organized around Islamic and social events. In the Soviet period, many mahallas were formalized and
incorporatedinto Uzbekistan's
administrative structure. After independence, the mahallas took shape as the
smallest administrative unit in Uzbekistan's
system of governance.The government promotes the mahalla as the root of the Uzbek nation. Although under the law the
mahalla committee's activities are controlled through general neighborhood
meetings, in practice administrative
government authorities control their
activities. President Karimov always
tracked his vision of local control
with the help of the mahalla. A prominent example was the creation of the
position of "neighborhood guardian" (posbon) by a Cabinet of Ministers' statute on April 19, 1999, after several bombings had taken place
in Tashkent. Mahallas
now serve as the eyes and ears of the government at the neighborhood level,
cooperating with law enforcement and other authorities
in the surveillance of "suspicious" individuals or gathering
of personal information on the
population.

[8]
The investigators claimed that the "terrorist
acts in Andijan were planned and organized in great detail by destructive
foreign forces" including "the
Islamic Movement of Turkestan and Hizb-ut-Tahir with its offshoot Akramia," who
wanted to "overthrow the constitutional order and create an Islamic state." The
investigators allege that the organizers began preparing the attack in August 2004, that there were
members trained in southern Kyrgyzstan,
and that some "sixty trained and armed Kyrgyz citizens actively participated"
in the terrorist acts. They also
allege that the organizers planned "so-called 'peaceful' demonstrations"
alongside the terrorist acts in
order to generate chaos. Press Service of the Prosecutor General of Uzbekistan, "Report on the
Investigation into the Andijan Events before the Oliy Majlis [Parliament]
Commission," Uzbekistan National News Agency UzA, September 7, 2005 [online] http://www.uza.uz/politics/?id1=5049(retrieved
September 7, 2005).
A senior Kyrgyz official denied that rebels could have been trained in southern
Kyrgyzstan.
"Statement of the General Procuracy
of Uzbekistan Does Not 'Correspond with Reality' Says Kyrgyz Security Council," Kabar News Agency, September 7, 2005,
as carried online on CentrAsia News
Service, http://www.centrasia.org/newsA.php4?st=1126036800
(retrieved September 7, 2005).

[9]
Press Service of the Prosecutor
General of Uzbekistan,
"Report on the Investigation into the Andijan Events before the Oliy Majlis
[Parliament] Commission." The Uzbek Supreme Court may serve as the trial court of first instance in certain types of criminal cases, including
those involving national security.
Under articles 389 and 390 of the Uzbek criminal
procedure code the Supreme Court may have jurisdiction
as a trial court under certain
circumstances, including for cases
that are especially complex or significant.

[10]
"Uzbek Leader Says Andijan Trial to
Start 20 September," Uzbek Television First Channel, in Uzbek, August 31, 2005, English
translation of excerpts in BBC Monitoring,
August 31, 2005.

[11]
Press Service of the Prosecutor
General of Uzbekistan,
"Report on the Investigation into the Andijan Events before the Oliy Majlis
[Parliament] Commission."

[12]
Human Rights Watch interview with "Rasul R." (not his real name), Andijan, July 13, 2005; and Human
Rights Watch interview with "Farida F."
(not her real name), date and place of interview withheld. Under article 217 of
the Uzbek Criminal Code law
enforcement officials are obliged to notify relatives of a detainee about the
detention within twenty-four hours of the detention.

[14]
Ibid. In other contexts Uzbek authorities
resort to coercion to pressure criminal defendants to refuse defense counsel not
appointed by the state.

[15]
Uzbek Television and Radio Company broadcasts, "Normalization of the Situation
in Andijan," May 16, 2005; "Visit of the Diplomatic Corps to Andijan," May 18,
2005; "Situation in Andijan One Week after the Tragedy," May 21, 2005;
"Attitudes Towards the Andijan Events," May 23, 2005; "Regarding the Events in
Andijan," May 25, 2005; and "Regarding the Events in Andijan," May 28, 2005,
all online at http://www.teleradio.uz/archive.php?Lang=ru
(retrieved August 24, 2005); and
"Uzbek TV Screens Second Part of New Documentary on Andijan Events," as quoted
in BBC Monitoring, July 28, 2005.

[17] Uzbekistan
Television and Radio Company broadcasts, "Meeting at the General Procuracy," May 18, 2005, and "Situation in Andijan One Week after the
Tragedy," May 21, 2005,
both online at http://www.teleradio.uz/archive.php?Lang=ru
(retrieved August 24, 2005). In an interview on
Uzbek television, Dr. Shirin Akiner,
a professor at the University
of London who visited
Andijan shortly after the massacre, supports
the government's version of events saying, "These people were not peaceful
demonstrators, these were rebels, they were armed. On the square there were no
protests or demands from the local people, there were just some people who
stood and watched what happened." Uzbek Television and Radio Company,
"Akhborot" (News), May 29, 2005, online at http://www.teleradio.uz/archive.php?Lang=ru
(retrieved August 24, 2005. This
broadcast was subsequently removed from the Uzbek Television and Radio Company
website. It is on file with Human Rights Watch).

[18]
Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcasts, "Normalization of the
Situation in Andijan," May
16, 2005; and "Briefing
at the General Procuracy," May 28,
2005.

[19]
Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcasts, "Twelve Days Since the
Events in Andijan," May 24, 2005; "Briefing
in the General Procuracy," May 28,
2005; "Statements from Citizens About Forgiveness for their Actions," May 30,
2005; and "Increased Role of Mahalla Committees in the Upbringing of Young People in Andijan," June 2, 2005,
online at http://www.teleradio.uz/archive.php?Lang=ru
(retrieved August 24, 2005).

[20] Uzbek
Television First Channel, June 30, 2005, English translation by BBC Monitoring July 1, 2005.

[22]
Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcast, "Regarding the Events in
Andijan," May 25, 2005.
In a May 29 interview on Uzbek state television, Dr. Akiner also stated, "There
are external forces-governmental and
nongovernmental-that would like to see a different government here and carry
out the same kind ofrevolution in Uzbekistan
as happened in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan so that this would happen here
and that there would be consequences in Kazakhstan and other countries of Central Asia." Uzbek Television and Radio
Company, "Akhborot" (News), May 29, 2005. "Prosecutor's Office Presents Report
on Andijan to Parliament Commission," Press Service
of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Uzbekistan, September 7,
2005, online at http://www.uza.uz/eng/news/?id1=5054
(retrieved September 8, 2005).

[23]
Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcasts, "Attitudes towards the
Andijan Events," May 23,
2005; "Twelve Days since the Andijan Events," May 24, 2005; and "Regarding the Events
in Andijan," May 25, 2005,
all online at http://www.teleradio.uz/archive.php?Lang=ru
(retrieved August 24, 2005).

[25] This
atmosphere of fear and the detention and abuse of people in Andijan was described in Anvar Makhkamov, "Uzbekistan: Andijan
Residents 'Tortured,'" Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Reporting Central
Asia No. 389, June 21, 2005; and Daniel Kimmage, "Uzbekistan: Climate of Fear Grips Andijan," RFE/RL features article August 16,
2005, [online] http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/8/29A428FD-F72B-451F-B955-AD2D0D3D7FD7.html
(retrieved August 16, 2005).

[26]Some interviewees also
called the process "profilaktika" (preventative measures). The term
"filtration" was also used in the Chechnya conflicts, to signify the
process by which Russian forces weeded out Chechen rebels from civilians and
obtained information about Chechen
rebel activities.

[27]
The right to freedom from torture is
a fundamental principle of international law (jus cogens) and as such is binding
on all states. It may not be abridged
(derogated) under any circumstances whatsoever. The right
is also protected in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, in
the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment (CAT), to which Uzbekistan
acceded in 1995, and Article 7 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Uzbekistan in 1996. Article 10 of
the latter also states that "[a]ll persons deprived
of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the
inherent dignity of the human person." The right
to liberty, including freedom from
arbitrary arrest and detention, is also firmly established in international law, including
in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Article 9 of the
ICCPR, which states that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or
detention. No one shall be deprived
of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as
are established by law."

[28]
U.N. GA Res., 43/173, U.N. Doc. a/43/49 (1988). U.N. Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under
Any Form of Detention and Imprisonment
is not a treaty but provides authoritative
guidance in interpreting the principles
laid out in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.

[30]
Human Rights Watch interview with "Fatima F." (not her real name), Kyrgyzstan,
July 7, 2005. As
of this writing Human Rights Watch
had not yet received a response to our letter to the government requesting information on the number of people detained in the
"filtration" process. Given the relatively short periods
of stay in detention, the relatively rapid turnover of detainees, and the fact
that the campaign lasted nearly two months, it is reasonable to assume that the
total number of detainees may have reached into the thousands.

[45]
According to a May 28 statement by the presssecretary of the Prosecutor
General's office, "Measures [were] being taken to return to their homeland,
civilians forcibly taken by terrorists
onto the territory of a neighboring state."Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcast, "Regarding the Events
in Andijan," May 28, 2005.

[46]Narodnoe Slovo, (People's Word) July 19, 2005, in Russian,
English translation of excerpts reproduced
in BBC monitoring July 19, 2005. This article
claimed that due to the government efforts, refugees were "voluntarily returning to their families and neighborhoods
[because] their relatives and loved ones are waiting for them. Punishment for
those returning has changed-they are released under the guardianship of local
neighborhoods."

[47]
Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcast, "Briefing
at the General Procuracy," May 28, 2005.

[49]The
Uzbek authorities continued to characterize
the refugees as criminals even after
the refugees had been relocated to Romania. The Prosecutor General's
office suggested that the refugees might still possess weapons seized during the Andijan uprising,
and there was no guarantee that these 'civilian refugees' would not undertake
new terrorist acts not only in
Central Asia but in other parts of the world. Press Service
of the Prosecutor General of Uzbekistan, "What the Armed 'Civilian Refugees'
Can Undertake," National Information Agency of Uzbekistan, August 25, 2005 [online]
http://www.uza.uz/politics/?id1=4870&print
(retrieved August 25, 2005). See
also, Uzbekistan Television and Radio Company broadcasts, "Regarding the Events
in Andijan," May 25, 2005, and "Briefing
at the General Procuracy," May 28,
2005; Uzbek Television first channel documentary, "Utter Brutality," aired on
July 27, in Uzbek, English translation of excerpts reproduced
in BBC Monitoring, July 28, 2005;
and Uzbek Television First Channel broadcast, July 29, 2005 in Russian, English
translation of excerpts reproduced
in "Uzbek TV Raps Kyrgyz Media for 'Distorting' Facts on Refugees," BBC monitoring, July 29, 2005.

[50]
Human Rights Watch interview with individual who asked not to be named, June 8, 2005.

[51]Uzbekistan
Television and Radio Company, "Regarding the Events in Andijan," May 25, 2005.

[52] The
refugees were initially held in Barash camp located in Jalal Abad province near
Sasyk, at the Uzbek border. On June 4, 2005 they were transferred to a camp in
Sasyk, also in Jalal Abad province. Four hundred and thirty-nine refugees were
moved to Romania
for the final stages of the third-country resettlement procedure on July 29,
2005. As of September 15, 2005, four asylum seekers still remain in detention
in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Estimated hundreds of
other Uzbeks who fled into Kyrgyzstan
after the May 13 violence but who did not end up in the camp may still be in Kyrgyzstan.

[53]
For example, during a single day, on
June 8, 2005, Human Rights Watch researchers at the camp saw five buses holding
approximately thirty people each as well as several cars, all with Andijan
license plates. Andijan government officials and men presented to be members of
the Uzbek National Security Service (SNB) accompanied the relatives to the camp.

[54]
For example, a Human Rights Watch researcher observed a plain clothes SNB
officer telling a group of relatives gathered around him that Kyrgyz authorities and international
organizations would "sell the refugees to Afghanistan," where they would be
recruited into extremist organizations. The encounter took place in Sasyk
Refugee Camp, Kyrgyzstan, on June
13, 2004.

[69]For
an excellent summary of the trajectory of Uzbek extradition
requests, see Amnesty International,
"Uzbekistan in Pursuit of Refugees in Kyrgyzstan: A Follow-up Report," EUR 58/016/2005, September 2, 2005.

[70]Sixteen men were detained on June 9, 2005 and seventeen
more were detained on June 16. Twelve of the sixteen men detained on June 9 had
escaped on May 13 from Andijan prison,
where eleven of them had been held in pre-trial
detention awaiting the outcome of trials
on politically-motivated charges; one man was serving a fourteen-year sentence
on charges of fraud and drug trafficking. Human Rights Watch has few details
regarding the basis for the extradition requests issued for the other
twenty-one men detained.

[71]
Press Release of General Consulate of the Republic of Uzbekistan,
"Information about the Andijan Events and the Investigation," (original in Russian), June 20 2005. According to the press release, one hundred of those facing charges
by the Uzbek government were Uzbek citizens and thirty-one were Kyrgyz
citizens.

[72]
On July 7 the Kyrgyz prosecutor general said that Uzbekistan had requested the
extradition of 231 people. Agence France Presse, "Andijan refugees to be
deported to Uzbekistan:
Kyrgyz official," July 7,
2005. A Human Rights Watch researcher learned on July 19 from authoritative sources who requested anonymity that the
Uzbeks had submitted a list of 217 refugees to be interrogated.

[73]Human Rights Watch witnessed the interrogations.
Questions asked of refugees included:
1) Where were you during the May 13
incident? 2) What did you see? 3) How did you happen to get into the refugee
group? 4) Did you participate in the demonstration in Andijan? 5) What is your
opinion on the goals of the demonstration? 6) What is your education,
profession, etc.? 7) Why did you choose to come to Kyrgyzstan?

[74] On July 4, Kazakh authorities detained Lutfullo Shamsuddinov on an Uzbek
extradition request; see below, section entitled, "Arrest and detention of
human rights defenders and political
activists in Andijan." On June 18, law enforcement agents in the Russian city
of Ivanovo
detained fourteen men pursuant to an Uzbek extradition request, claiming they were involved in the Andijan events.

[75]
These five men are Shamduddin Atamatov, Musajon Mirzaboev, Odil Maskhadaliev, Tursun Nazarov and Oktiboi
Akbarov. They were among the group of twenty-three businessmen whose trial in Andijan sparked the protests leading up to
May 13.

[76]
The charges included infringement of the constitutional order of Uzbekistan;
organizing a criminal group; support of, membership in, or leadership of a banned
group; and preparation or distribution of materials
in support of a threat to public
safety and order (Criminal Code
articles 159, 242, and 244-1 and 244-2).

[78]
In a public statement issued on August
1, 2005, the Uzbek Ministry of Affairs said that the evacuation was
unjustified because "the number of citizens on the territory of Kyrgyzstan
did not present a threat to the safety or of destabilizing the situation in the
border regions of Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan."
The ministry dismissed concerns about the possible torture or persecution of
returnees, saying that that those who had returned to Uzbekistan
faced "no persecution or pressure"
and characterized
the evacuation as violative of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967
protocol. Significantly, the statement accused "outside forces" of pressuring
the Kyrgyz government on the refugees as part of these forces' "effort to play
the card of the so-called 'Uzbek refugees' and prolong the undeclared informational attack, the implementation of which,
like that of the 'Andijan operation,' was planned even before the tragic events
of May 13 took place in Andijan." See, "Zaiavlenie MID Respubliki Uzbekistana"
[Declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan],
Uzbek National News Agency, August 1, 2005. [online] http://www.uza.uz/politics/?id1=4524&print.
Accessed August 1, 2005.

[79]
The prohibition on refoulement is found in customary international
law and in international treaty law
on human rights and refugees. International refugee law prohibits states from
expelling or returning an asylum-seeker or refugee "in any manner whatsoever"
to a territory where his life or
freedom would be threatened. Article 33 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the
Status of Refugees). International
human rights law, most notably
Article 3 of the 1984 Convention Against Torture, states that no state "shall
expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there
are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being
subjected to torture." Kyrgyzstan
acceded to the Refugee Convention and its Protocol on October 8, 1996, and to the Convention
Against Torture on September
5, 1997. The ban on refoulement is implicit in the prohibition on
torture and ill-treatment in Article 7 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 5 of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, which oversees
implementation by national governments of the ICCPR, has interpreted the
Convention's torture prohibition to include
the nonrefoulement obligation: "In
the view of the Committee, State parties must not expose individuals to the
danger of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment upon
return to another country by way of their extradition, expulsion or refoulement. U.N. Human Rights Committee
General Comment No. 20 (1992). Finally, but most importantly, the ban on
returns to torture enjoys the status of a peremptory norm, from which no
derogation is permitted and which is binding on all states. See, Human Rights
Watch, "Still at Risk: Diplomatic Assurances No Safeguard Against Torture," April 2005, Vol. 17, No. 4(D), pp. 7-14. Uzbekistan
became a party to the Convention Against Torture on September 28, 1995.

[80]On June 10, 2005 Human Rights
Watch researchers viewed the document, which stated clearly that the Kyrgyz SNB
was undertaking the transfer of the four men to Uzbek SNB custody; an official
from the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal
Affairs in Jalal Abad also signed as a witness to the transfer. A video image
of the document is on file with Human Rights Watch. According to the government
of Uzbekistan,
the Kyrgyz prosecutor's office approved the transfer of the four men. Confidential
source, names withheld, dates withheld. According to the Kyrgyz prosecutor
general's office, "four citizens of Uzbekistan were sent back to their
homeland on the decision of staff members of Jalal Abad department of the Interior Ministry. Office of the Prosecutor General is
conducting an investigation into the case." See, http://pr.kg/news2005/050803allinformationfromprkginformationfrompgk.php.
See also ITAR-TASS-CIS, August
3, 2005.

[82]
The right to seek and enjoy asylum
is protected in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well
as in the U.N.
Declaration on Territorial Asylum (UNGA Res. 2312 (XXII) of 14 Dec
1967.

[83]
The right to freedom from torture
also carries a non-refoulement
obligation under international law.
See footnote 79.

[84]
The right to life forms part of
customary international law and
together with the right to liberty
and security is also protected by
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Articles 6, 7 and 9
of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights.

[85] Human Rights Watch
researchers viewed the four letters on June 10, 2005, but were not permitted to retain copies. A
video image of one of the four letters is on file with Human Rights Watch. Each
letter stated that the signatory voluntarily
elected to return to Uzbekistan.
The relevant section of the
statement reads, "On 09.06.05 I voluntarily
leave the camp to return to Uzbekistan
to my residence. I lay claim neither against the camp's employees nor against
the KyrgyzRepublic authorities.
This statement was recorded correctly and read to me."

[86] United Nations Press
Release, "U.N. High Commissioners for Refugees and Human Rights Urge Kyrgyzstan
not to Forcibly Return More Uzbek Asylum-Seekers," Geneva, June 22, 2005. This press release states, "The High Commissioners
reiterated their concern over the fate of four asylum seekers who were forcibly
returned to Uzbekistan
on 9 June before their claims had been examined."

[88]
As late as August 3, an official from the Kyrgyz prosecutor's office claimed
the men had returned to Uzbekistan
"on their own accord."AKIpress as carried
in BBC Monitoring, August 3, 2005. The
statement undermined confidence in that agency's commitment to hold law
enforcement officials accountable for the transfer or to accept responsibility
for the procuracy's own possible
role in the return of the men. For its part, the Uzbek prosecutor's office has
said that the handover was not in response to an extradition request by that
office. "Uzbek Prosecutor: Suspect Did Not Die under Torture, Return of Four
was Voluntary," Interfax, August
20, 2005.

[89]Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of two of
the men, names withheld, Andijan, July 13, 2005.

[90]
On August 20, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office said that the
four were accused of "direct participation in the attacks on the buildings of
the regional administration and law and order [agencies] and on a military base, with killing hostages and civilians, and
with hijacking cars." "Uzbek Prosecutor: Suspect Did Not Die under Torture,
Return of Four was Voluntary," Interfax, August 20, 2005.

[91]
The death penalty is carried out by
firing squad in Uzbekistan. On August 1, 2005,
President Karimov announced that the
death penalty would be abolished in 2008, however, his government did not
institute a moratorium on the death
penalty in the years leading up to its abolition. Executions were expected to
continue. Aggravated charges under Criminal
Code articles 97 and 155 carry the death penalty as the maximum punishment. Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

[93] Amnesty International, urgent action, "KYRGYZSTAN:541 refugees from Andijan, Uzbekistan (men,
women and children)," AI Index: EUR 58/011/2005, 27 July 2005; and Letter to
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan from thirty-four asylum seekers from
Uzbekistan (names withheld), undated, copy on file with Human Rights Watch. This
letter stated, "One person out of the four handed over to the Uzbek authorities is in dire situation;" and June 28 interview
with Kabul Parpiev in which he states that Tavakal Khajiev had been
hospitalized and was in critical
condition following torture in Uzbek detention, Fergana.ru,
June 28, 2005 [online] http://news.ferghana.ru/detail.php?id=3841&mode=none.

[94]
"Uzbek Prosecutor: Suspect Did Not Die under Torture, Return of Four was
Voluntary," Interfax, August
20, 2005.

[95]Human Rights
Watch interview with a relative of one of the four men, all names withheld,
place withheld, June 2005.

[98]
Article 19 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reads, "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression;
this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of
frontiers, either orally, in writing
or in print, in the form of art, or
through any other media of his
choice." International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and
accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966. Uzbekistan acceded to the covenant
on September 28, 1995.

[103]
Article 155, part 3, clauses a and b and Article 244-1 part 3, clause b of the
Criminal Code of Uzbekistan.
"Uzbekistan Raps UN Body for Demanding Not to Repatriate
Suspect," Interfax, July 6,
2005, in Russian, English translation in BBC Monitoring, July
6, 2005.

[104]
As stated in a search warrant presented to the wife of Lutfullo Shamsuddinov, a
human rights activist and colleague
of Zainabitditnov, on May 25 by an Uzbek SNB agent. Human Rights Watch
interview with Lutfullo Shamsuddinov (see below), Tashkent, May 25, 2005.

[105]
Human Rights Watch communication with relative of Zainabitdinov,
name withheld, place withheld, August
26, 2005.

[109]The statement accuses the Uzbek government of targeting
Birlik for persecution and refusing to register the party. It charges the
government authorities with failing
to maintain order in Andijan, resorting to force in order to resolve the
Andijan crisis, and shooting
hundreds of civilians, including
women and children. The statement also accuses President Karimov, who went to Andijan during
the crisis, of being personally
responsible for the killing of civilians in Andijan. "Those Who Shoot the
People Will Answer before History," Birlik Party Statement regarding the
Andijan Events, May 15, 2005, [online] http://www.birlik.net.index-single-24.ru
(retrieved September 6, 2005).

[110]MemorialHumanRightsCenter, "Uzbekistan:
Member of the Opposition Party 'Birlik' Charged with Anti-Constitutional
Activity," MemorialHumanRightsCenter
Press Release, July 6, 2005.

[111]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview with one of the representatives
of the seven accused men, August
31, 2005.

[112]
The senior investigator was from the Markhamat District
Department of Internal Affairs.

[114]
Elena Urlaeva and Akhtam Shaimardanov, "Report on the Situation for Human
Rights Defenders and Opposition Members of Uzbekistan in the period May 13-July 18, 2005," Tashkent, July 19, 2005,
p. 3. For Turaeva's statements regarding Andijan, see "Uneasy Calm in Uzbekistan
after Two Days of Violence," RFE/RL, May 15, 2005, [online]
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/5/111865DB-3E5C-44D7-85ED-830B954D8422.html
(retrieved August 8, 2005).

[119]
See Human Rights Watch, "'Bullets Were Falling Like Rain': The Andijan Massacre
May 13, 2005," pp.45-48; and OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos
Haraszti, "Coverage of the Events and Governmental Handling of the Press During the Andijan Crisis
in Uzbekistan: Observations and Recommendations," June 15, 2005, [online] http://www.osce.org/documents/html/pdftohtml/15195_en.pdf.html
(retrieved July 25, 2005).

[120]
The block on broadcasting included
CNN, BBC, and Deutsche Welle as well as Russian television channels. OSCE,
"Coverage of the Events and Governmental Handling of the Press during the Andijan Crisis
in Uzbekistan:
Observations and Recommendations," pp. 2-3.

[128]
Article 21 of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states, "The right
of peaceful assembly shall be recognized. No restrictions
may be placed on the exercise of this right
other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in
a democratic society in the interests of national security
or public safety, public order (order
publique), the protection of public health or morals or the
protection of the rights and
freedoms of others." International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Adopted and opened for signature,
ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966.

[129]
The International Helsinki
Federation also recorded some forty incidents of house arrest in May and June,
some of which were related to planned or past demonstrations. It was not
possible to determine whether all of these cases were directly related to
demonstrations or to other human rights
activity. International Helsinki Federation, "One Can't Keep Silent:' the
Persecution of Human Rights Defenders in Uzbekistan in the Aftermath of Andijan,"
July 15, 2005,
pp. 5-6.

[130]
See Elena Urlaeva and Akhtam Shaimardanov, "Report on the Situation for Human
Rights Defenders and Opposition Members of Uzbekistan in the period May 13-July 18, 2005," Tashkent, July 19, 2005,
pp. 1-3."

[132]
Urlaeva and Shaimardanov, "Report on the Situation for Human Rights
Defenders," pp. 1-3. See also the testimony of Akzam Turgunov regarding his
detention and mistreatment, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Uzbek, June 13, 2005, English
translation in BBC Monitoring, June 14, 2005.

[162] "Uzbekistan: New Data Regarding Surveillance of
Opposition Activists and Human Rights Defenders," HumanRightsCenter Memorial Press Release, May 31, 2005. In one instance, on May 29, police
broke into the apartment of Dainav Tashanov, head of the Karshi province office
of Birlik. Police beat Tashanov and detained him together with Zulfikor
Mirzakulov, head of the local office of Ezgulik, who was visiting Tashanov.
Police detained the men until midnight
and then drove them towards the village Chinkurgan, 100 kilometers from Karshi,
and dropped them at the side of the road. See "Kashkadarja Regional Authorities Apply More and More Pressure to the Human
Rights Community and Opposition," Ferghana.ru news agency, May 30, 2005, [online] http://news.ferghana.ru/detail.php?id=962
(retrieved July 22, 2005).

[163]
Police also confined Abdujalil Boimatov of the Human Rights Society of
Uzbekistan to house arrest for two weeks, from May 22 to June 5. Urlaeva and
Shaimardanov, "Report on the Situation for Human Rights Defenders," pp. 4-5.
See also Gulnoza Saidazimova, "Uzbekistan:
Crackdown on Journalists, Activists
Intensifies," RFE/RL June 6,
2005.

[170]
On February 16, 2004
authorities arrested Kurbanov,
forced him to sign a dictated confession, and sentenced him on fabricated charges of weapons possession in an unfair trial that focused on his human rights work. See Human Rights Watch, World Report 2005 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2005) p. 449.

[179]
Elena Urlaeva was forcibly detained in a psychiatric
institution first in April 2001 for
two months and again in June 2002 for six months.

[180]The pressure
on human rights defenders in Jizzakh
appears to have been effective. Bakhtior Khamroev, a human rights activist in Jizzakh, reported
a precipitous decline in membership of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan
since the government campaign began. "I don't blame those people who leave in
order to save their lives, but the longer time goes on, the fewer people
remain. One year ago, in Jizzakh oblast there were 127 members of HRSU, now
only twenty-eight remain. In Dostui region [of Jizzakh oblast], there were
thirty-eight, and only five remain," he said. Human Rights Watch interview with
Bakhtior Khamroev, Tashkent,
August 17, 2005.

[181]
Some of these strongly resembled government-organized "hate rallies" held at
the height of the government's campaign against suspected Islamic
"fundamentalists" in 1999 and 2000. See Human Rights Watch, Creating Enemies of the State: Religious
Persecution in Uzbekistan
(New York:
Human Rights Watch, 2004).

[182]
Human Rights Watch interviews with Bakhtior Khamroev, Jizzakh, May 26 and 27,
2005, June 7 and 25, 2005 and in Tashkent,
August 27, 2005.

[201]On June 4 Uzbek security
agents arrested Norboi Kholjigitov, a member of HRSU and Ozod Dekhkonlar
together with two other HRSU activists, Abdusattor Irzaev and Khabbulla
Akpulatov, in the village of Mikam near Samarkand.
Kholjigitov is a long time advocate for land reform and worked to work to
defend farmers' rights. He is being
charged with extortion after a political rival
allegedly attempted to give him a bag of marked money. Kholijigitov's lawyer,
Asledin Suvankulov, reported that officials told his client that he had
been put in prison because "the
regional authorities have had enough
of you." Suvankulov was beaten and
threatened for his work on Kholjigitov's case. Human Rights Watch interview
with HRSU Chairman Talib Yakubov,
Tashkent, June 20, 2005; Human Rights Watch interview with Aslidin Suvankulov, Chilik, June 23, 2005; and Human Rights
Society of Uzbekistan press release,
"N. Kholjigitov is subjected to torture," July 24, 2005, [online] http://centrasia.org/newsZphp4?st=1122196380
(retrieved July 25, 2005).

[213]
Council of the European Union, General Affairs and External
Relations Council Meeting, Brussels 18 July
2005, "Council conclusions on Uzbekistan."

[214] One of the Uzbek military
units said to have been involved in the massacre, an elite counterterrorism unit called "Bars," included
officers who had received US State Department-sponsored training on crisis response in Louisiana in 2004. Although it is not clear
whether the US-trained personnel were personally involved in the massacre,
eyewitnesses indicate that their unit was. Chivers, C.J. and Shanker, Thom,
"Uzbek Units Linked to Deadly Crackdown
got U.S. Training," International
Herald Tribune, June 20, 2005.